"Environmental Protection Agency officials today announced the gigantic news that they have formally moved to veto the Clean Water Act permit for the largest mountaintop removal mine in West Virginia history," the proposed Spruce Mine in Logan County, which would bury seven miles of streams, Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette writes. It would mark the first time that EPA has revoked a mining permit already issued. (Encarta map gives approximate location)"EPA has been warning since early September that it would do this if the federal Army Corps of Engineers and Arch Coal Inc. officials did not do more to reduce the environmental impacts" of the mine, Ward reports. The Corps issues Clean Water Act permits for mines but EPA can override them. EPA Regional Administrator Bill Early told the Corps in a letter, "The Spruce No. 1 Mine represents the largest authorized mountaintop-removal operation in Appalachia and occurs in a watershed where many streams have been impacted by previous mining activities." The controversial mine has a long and complex legal history, as Ward explains in his Coal Tattoo blog post.
While the decision is huge, and perhaps historic, it does not appear to mean that EPA is out to stop mountaintop-removal mining. Early said in his letter that the case "represents an unusual set of circumstances we do not expect to be repeated again," and Ward notes that the day before, "EPA revealed that it had reached a deal with Patriot Mining that should allow that company to move forward with a huge permit to expand its Hobet 21 complex along the Boone-Lincoln County line."
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