Southwest Virginia activists denied a hearing of their own on proposed mining rule changes

The U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement has scheduled four public hearings on proposed rule changes that would help protect mountaintop-removal strip mining for coal. All the hearings will be held at 6 p.m. today, in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia, for residents of the Appalachian coalfield to share their opinions. Some in Virginia, however, are feeling left out, reports The Coalfield Progress of Norton.

News Editor Jeff Lester reports that one opponent of the rule change sought an additional hearing in southwestern Virginia to discuss the change to the 100-foot stream buffer rule, but that request was denied. Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards vice president Kathy Selvage spoke out against the change at an Oct. 18 quarterly meeting of the Upper Tennessee River Roundtable, held at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise. She cited figures from the Environmental Protection Agency that showed the number of valley fills and buried stream beds in Appalachia. Lester writes:

Selvage said that between 1985 and 2001, 500 valley fills were approved as part of strip mining in Virginia, and more than 67 miles of stream bed were buried ... According to the same statement, Kentucky approved 4,995 valley fills and buried more than 436 miles of streams during the same 16-year period, while West Virginia approved 1,147 valley fills and buried roughly 214 miles of streams. The same EPA statement also notes that during the same period, the number of valley fills approved in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia peaked in 1985 at 729, and had dropped to 221 in 2001.

Selvage said those numbers show the issue means more to Virginia than Tennessee (which had fewer instances), so OSM should have held a public hearing in southwest Virginia. OSM reclamation specialist Ronnie Vicars said at the roundtable that while mountaintop removal can look "ugly" in the short term, new regulations have led to better reclamation as well as safer mining practices in general. (Read more; subscription required)