If a timber company cuts trees to make way for a strip mine, is that a "surface coal mining operation" subject to federal law? And an illegal one if a mining permit has not been obtained? Those questions, apparently never answered though the federal strip-mine law has been in effect for 30 years, are at the heart of a legal dispute in federal court in southwest Virginia.
Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards and the Sierra Club filed suit last week to halt logging of Ison Rock Ridge near Derby because A & G Coal has applied for a permit to mine 1,231 acres there. Magistrate Judge Pamela Meade Sargent "noted that there was no law available upon which to base her decision," reports Keith Strange of The Coalfield Progress in Norton. (Subscription required)
Still, Strange recommended that District Judge Glen Williams issue a temporary injunction to stop the logging, and he did on Monday. It made the lead story in today's Progress. The ruling was based on the threat of irreparable harm to a landowner "who reported watermelon-sized rocks falling onto his property after logging began on a steep slope behind his home," Strange reports.
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