Corps OKs Ky. mountaintop-removal mine permit, asserting itself in Appalachian fight with EPA

"U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials on Wednesday escalated a fight with the Environmental Protection Agency over the regulation of mountaintop removal coal mining," by reinstating "a permit that had previously been suspended after environmental groups sued in federal court to stop it," reports Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette. The Corps acted on the Kentucky permit without consulting EPA, reports Jim Bruggers of The Courier-Journal in Louisville.

This week, EPA objected to two applications before the Corps for mountaintop mines in Kentucky and West Virginia, and signaled that it would give about 200 other such applications a more critical review than it did under the Bush administration. The Courier-Journal op-ed page today has an article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saying "President Obama has signaled his intention to save this region."

But Tim Huber of The Associated Press reports that EPA "has struck a note of economic fear in Appalachia." Some of that could have come from initial news reports of a "crackdown" and irresponsible, online headlines such as "Obama administration halts mountaintop removal." Ward writes in his Coal Tattoo blog, "Around the country, through the magic of the blogosphere — at The Huffington Post to be more specific — there’s a completely different discussion going on." He praises a post by Matt Wasson, interim director of the environmental group Appalachian Voices, which notes the importance of "fairly high paying jobs" at Appalachian mines.

The story should be a local one for every news outlet in the mountaintop-removal region of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The Post in Big Stone Gap, Va., has a report in which Jeff Lester says the news "elated environmental activists and panicked coal companies who fear it will stall hundreds of pending mine permits. But speculation about EPA’s actions is wildly overblown, the agency said." (Read more; subscription required)

The EPA move affects not only mountaintop-removal mining, but any mining that uses valley fills. Don Hopey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that EPA has asked for more information on "a Consol Coal Co. proposal to bury almost five miles of streams and six acres of wetlands in Greene County under more than 90 million cubic yards of coal waste rock." (Read more)