As you know if you follow the blog at all, mountaintop removal mining is right up there with tar sands extraction at the top of my list of destructive, hateful businesses. Al Gore calls it a “despicable practice” in Our Choice. (This, by the way, is a truly terrific book.)
Here is an article from the consistently excellent website and news resource, Solve Climate, that talks about further progress that EPA is making on confronting this environmental obscenity. The EPA’s regional administrator has just issued a “proposed” determination on an individual application. (It’s “proposed” because it’s not final until there is considerable public comment and response by EPA. We call that democracy.) Shawn Garvin, the regional administrator, wrote: “EPA believes that the predicted impacts from the Spruce No. 1 mine, if constructed as currently authorized, could have unacceptable effects on wildlife and fisheries.” Unacceptable. That’s a big word in these sorts of proceedings. I noted here a year ago that Lisa Jackson, EPA’s boss, “…planned an aggressive review of permit requests for mountaintop coal mining, citing concerns about potential harm to water quality.” She’s kept her word.
Meanwhile, here’s a new video report, Leveling Appalachia, that a student of mine flagged to me. It’s from Yale Environment 360, 20 minutes long, really well done and well worth watching. The ecologist Ben Stout is one of the most eloquent voices here, as he is in another documentary that I’ve seen and noted here, Burning the Future: Coal in America. “Alternative energy is not an alternative,” Stout says at the end of the video. “It’s the next thing. If we don’t do it, we’re not going to survive as a species. The planet will still be here, other species will survive, but we’re just not going to be part of the picture.”
Update: EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on Thursday announced “Comprehensive Guidance to Protect Appalachian Communities From Harmful Environmental Impacts of Mountaintop Mining.” Jackson said: “One point I have emphasized is EPA’s responsibility under the Clean Water Act – and we are unequivocally committed to fulfilling that responsibility with regard to mountaintop mining.” Jackson is turning out to be one of the strongest EPA chiefs ever. In one year, she may have already surpassed all the others.
The website of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition has a slew of news stories dated yesterday and today, and their press release lauds the EPA and the fact that it “… has finally shown it is hearing our voices.” Yet it cautions, rightly “So much depends on how all the guidelines and laws are enforced.”
