Advocacy group asks Interior Department to investigate connection of Kentucky flood deaths to surface coal mining

Screenshot of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth interactive map; streamflow is generally NW

Four inches of rain in a single hour. And the rain just kept on falling. Now, "A Kentucky advocacy group is calling on the federal government to launch an investigation into whether a legacy of surface coal mining in Eastern Kentucky exacerbated the catastrophic, deadly flooding the region faced last July," Liam Niemeyer reports for Kentucky Lantern. "Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, a progressive, grassroots organization known for lobbying on environmental issues, made public Monday a letter it was sending to federal surface-mine regulators. The letter not only requests an investigation into whether a relationship exists between surface coal mining and the severity of floods but also calls on federal officials to investigate a state agency charged with inspecting surface coal mines."

"At least 44 deaths have been attributed to the floods by the governor's office," reports Connor Griffin of the Louisville Courier Journal. The group's letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior, which includes the Office of Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement, "pointed out the proximity of 35 flood-related deaths, and one missing person, to land that has been used for mining. Even after reclamation, strip-mined land often cannot absorb flood runoff as it would naturally." 

KFTC accuses the Kentucky Department of Mine Reclamation and Enforcement "of failing to properly investigate complaints and requests for inspection, even after Eastern Kentuckians filed more than 100 of them with the regional office in Hazard after the floods hit." In response, the state Energy and Environment Cabinet "defended its record of mining-regulation enforcement, and cited its extensive work on the ground in the hours and days following the floods, and said the Division of Abandoned Mine Lands responded to 400 complaints of flooded areas in the months after," but said it "would welcome any DOI analysis of any surface mining contribution to the flooding."

Appalachians ask: How do we prepare for floods bound to come as climate change appears to be making them worse?

Flooding aftermath in Neon Junction, Kentucky. (Mountain Eagle photo by Ben Gish)

"Devastating floods that killed at least 37 people in Kentucky and recent damage in other parts of Appalachia, including Virginia and West Virginia, are fueling urgent questions about how to mitigate the impact of hazardous flooding that is only expected to increase as climate change fuels more extreme weather," report Chris Kenning of USA Today, Connor Giffin of the Louisville Courier Journal and James Bruggers of Inside Climate News.

The damage is nearly indescribable. Ben Gish, publisher of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., told The Rural Blog after a trip to Neon and McRoberts: "I keep looking for a way to put it into words, but can’t think of any that would do it justice, except annihilated. People are still living in the ruins of their homes, and some who don’t have a home are somehow sleeping in the remains of their flooded cars. Double-wide mobile homes, which is often the symbol of success for many since the banks rarely finance new housing, have crashed into each other and worse. . . . At this point, I think it would be much easier to count the people whose homes were not flooded than those homes that were." The Eagle is being distributed free again this week, in print and on its website.

Solutions for the flooding are elusive for many reasons, including "the region’s mountainous landscape, high poverty rates, dispersed housing in remote valleys, coal-mining scarred mountains that accelerate floods and under-resourced local governments," Kenning, Giffin and Bruggers report. "Measures such as floodwalls, drainage systems or raising homes are expensive for cash-strapped counties. Buyouts or building restrictions are difficult in areas where safer options and new home construction are limited. Many are unable or unwilling to uproot. And tamping down extreme weather by reducing climate-changing emissions nationwide is a goal that is politically fraught, including in a region with coal in its veins, that promises no quick relief."

Former mining regulators say decades of surface mining have left Central Appalachia uncommonly vulnerable to such flooding and made the floods deadlier, Bruggers reports for ICN. Coal companies are supposed to reclaim the land when they shutter, making it more resistant to flooding, but some states and judges have not forced them to do so. Billions of dollars will be required to full reclaim abandoned mines, and though the infrastructure bill had $11.3 billion for the task, President Biden, who is in Eastern Kentucky today, has not nominated a director for the Office of Surface Mining. Bruggers reported in April that very few Kentucky coal mines are current on reclamation.

Meanwhile, Appalachians have one advantage in the fight: each other. Neil Middleton, vice president and general manager of WYMT-TV in Hazard, said in a recent commentary: "That's what we mountain folk do. We survive, we rebuild, we take care of our own, whatever it takes, in any way possible." Jessica Tezak of The Washington Post has a feature story on one of the helpers, Pastor Brad Tezak of Clay County. If you want to contribute to flood relief, The Daily Yonder has a list.

Nature Conservancy says it will build six solar power plants on old coal-mine sites it owns in southwest Virginia

Site of one of the proposed solar farms (Photo from the Nature Conservancy)

Six former surface coal mines in Southwest Virginia "are being transformed into solar installations that will be large enough to contribute renewable energy to the electric grid," Zoeann Murphy reports for The Washington Post. The sites "owned by The Nature Conservancy will be some of the first utility-scale solar farms in the region — and the nonprofit group hopes it’s creating a model that can be replicated" at other sites in Appalachia and nationwide.

Several thousand acres of old mines came with 253,000 acres of forest the Conservancy acquired in 2019, which it calls the Cumberland Forest Project. Why develop solar on an old coal mine? It's not just for the irony. Murphy reports: "Solar developers partnering with the Nature Conservancy, such as Dominion Energy and Sun Tribe, say the mine sites have vast flat areas exposed to sunlight that are a rarity in the mountains, and the sites offer advantages like being close to transmission lines." Sun Tribe and Sol Systems are partnering on the first two, the Conservancy announced last year.

Solar farms need a lot of ground, and "It would be better to build on a lot of these mine sites than some prime farmland or some areas that maybe don't want solar in their community," said Daniel Kestner, innovative reclamation manager for the Virginia Department of Energy.

Most of the project area is in Wise County, on the Kentucky border, The Coalfield Progress in Norton reported last year; some is in Dickenson County, to the northeast; some is Russell County, to the southeast. “We’re very proud to be an energy-producing community,” said Lou Wallace, chair of the Russell County Board of Supervisors. “This is helping us to reimagine how we produce the energy. So we’re still able to say we’re keeping the lights on somewhere.”

Interior official met repeatedly with coal-industry lobbyists before canceling study on health effects of strip mining

A top official in the Department of the Interior met repeatedly with coal-industry lobbyists shortly before canceling a study on the public health effects of surface mining, Jimmy Tobias reports for the Pacific Standard.

Katharine MacGregor

Katharine MacGregor, the principal deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, oversees the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. OSM hired the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine to do the study, but Interior abruptly suspended it last August, as researchers were about to hold their final public meetings on it. The meetings were held, and researchers said they expected to continue after a budget review that Interior had cited as the reason for the suspension, but then Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette-Mail revealed that the study was the only one suspended. Later, the contract was canceled and the research committee disbanded.

Tobias writes: "Emails obtained through a FOIA request show that Katharine MacGregor had a hand in ensuring the health study's cancellation. Indeed, she appears to have been keenly interested in the matter." She wrote the OSM director Aug. 17: "I thought you told me on the phone that this was postponed?" The next day, OSM suspended the work.

“This is the very essence of what we mean when we describe Appalachia as a sacrifice zone,” said Bob Kincaid, president of Coal River Mountain Watch, a group fighting mountaintop-removal mining. Bo Webb, coordinator of the Appalachian Community Health Emergency campaign, which helped prompt West Virginia officials to ask for the study, said in the same press release, "It’s clear now that canceling this study was a gift to the coal industry.."

Tobias reports that "in the months leading up to the cancellation," MacGregor's calendar "shows that she had no fewer than six meetings with the most powerful mining players in the country. In both April and May of 2017, she met with the National Mining Association. In March and June, meanwhile, she met with Arch Coal, a long-time practitioner of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia."

The evidence is circumstantial, but Tobias sees a broader trend in MacGregor's calendars: At the same time she held a mere handful of meetings—fewer than 10, according to my tally—with conservation organizations like The Wilderness Society and Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters." The calendar sshow that she "appears to have a habit of meeting repeatedly with industries and organizations that later receive favorable treatment from agencies she helps oversee," Tobias writes. An Interior spokesperson told him MacGregor is "happy to make time to meet with whomever requests a meeting," including conservation groups. "We have always welcomed input from all citizens and will continue to listen to ideas and concerns from anyone interested in sharing them."

Plan to put huge array of solar panels on a mined mountaintop could depend on more mining

Plans by EDF Renewables to put the largest solar farm ever built in Kentucky on a mined mountaintop are in limbo because a coal company years behind in the cleanup that must come first, is dragging its feet. The $150 million project was proposed a year ago, and would be located on Bent Mountain in the state's easternmost county, James Bruggers reports for Inside Climate News.

If the project is not ready to go in 2019 or 2020, the federal tax breaks for renewable energy projects begin to decrease, making it less economically feasible. "If Kentucky Fuel would do what they said they would do there wouldn't be a problem," Ryan Johns told Bruggers. Johns is one of the farm's developers and the vice president of Ross Harris Group, which comprises more than 30 companies that focus on coal, oil, gas, timber and real estate. One of those, Berkeley Energy Group, is a coal mining company that wants to diversify into renewable energy. Berkeley is getting the land ready in conjunction with Adam Edelen, a former state auditor who had the original idea and is handling finance and marketing, and EDF, an international solar and wind energy developer.

"Four years ago, settling one of the largest enforcement actions in Kentucky's recent history, the coal company's owners promised state officials that they would compete a tangle of reclamation work spread over several counties by September 2015," reports Bruggers, former environmental reporter for the Louisville Courier Journal. "But the case has dragged on in court. It's a fight that involves one of the most powerful families in the region, headed by Jim Justice, the billionaire coal baron who is now governor of West Virginia."

The cost of reclaiming a poorly reclaimed mine site is often subsidized by extra coal mined during the reclamation, and "Kentucky Fuel wants more mining to help pay for the work," Bruggers reports. "But it is not clear whether valid leases are in place for that approach. That, too, may have to be sorted out; if not, the state could issue a permit for reclamation only, but the work would be more expensive. It's unclear whether the costs of additional reclamation, and the possibility of paying for it with more mining, would materially affect the solar farm's construction costs."

Denied federal funding, study on health effects of mountaintop-removal coal mining has been abandoned

"After Trump administration officials ordered a halt to a study on the health effects of mountaintop removal last fall, the study’s committee has been released, effectively terminating the project," Kate Mishkin reports for the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

"The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s study would have looked at the health effects on residents who live near mountaintop removal coal-mining sites. It was put on hold when the Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining announced that it was reviewing grants and agreements that would cost more than $100,000."

An Interior spokesperson did not answer any questions about why the study was terminated and whether it might be revived in the future. Riya Anandwala, a spokesperson for the National Academies, would not speculate on the reason for the study's termination, but told Mishkin it was "not unprecedented, but it's very rare."

Mountaintop mining makes streams saltier and more perennial, study in W.Va. watershed finds

Map shows mined areas in red and a star on study area.

Mountaintop-removal coal mining has made the streams of West Virginia's Mud River basin run saltier but more regularly, researchers at Duke University and the University of Wyoming have found.

It has long been known that excavation of rock around coal seams, which is then placed into engineered fills at stream headwaters, releases salty substances into streams. But the study also confirmed something that has long been surmised, that "the porosity of the crushed rocks increases the water storage capacity of the valley fills. This decreases natural storm runoff during high-flow winter months while contributing proportionately more water to stream flows during the drier months that make up about 80 percent of the region's calendar year, says a UW press release published in Science Daily.

3-D map and chart in study compare streamflow in mined and non-mined areas.

The more frequent flows in ephemeral streams mean that the Mud River and its tributaries, "the site of extensive mountaintop mining in recent years . . . run consistently saltier for up to 80 percent of the year," the release says. That "has implications for farming, urban water use and the environment, as well as degradation of streamwater quality," says Matthew Ross, a Ph.D. student at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. His co-author is Fabian Nippgen, assistant professor of ecosystem science and management at UW. Their study was published this week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. "It is among the first studies to document mountaintop-removal coal mining's long-term impacts on watershed, and to show how mined areas contribute to local and regional stream flow," the release says.

National Geographic makes anti-coal documentary available free online through next Monday

"From the Ashes," an anti-coal documentary by Michael Bonfiglio and financed by billionaire and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, debuted last night on the National Geographic Channel. Bloomberg and the National Geographic Documentary Films are making the 100-minute film available for free online through July 3.

"It’s a compelling piece of advocacy journalism, one that looks beyond the sloganeering on all sides of the debate," Sheri Linden writes in a review for the Los Angeles Times. "Crucially, Bonfiglio listens to some of the working people — outraged, mournful and resilient — whose lives have been affected by coal. They include West Virginia miners left high and dry by their bankrupt employers in what were essentially company towns and Dallas residents struggling with pollution-related asthma. He finds strange bedfellows: miners aligned with management against federal regulators, and the 'cowboys and Indians,' as one pleased Montana rancher puts it, who joined forces to defeat a proposal for what would have been the nation’s largest coal mine" in the Otter Creek Valley of the Powder River Basin.

The film opens from miners' point of view, but says the "war on coal was waged primarily by the natural-gas industry," which is providing cheaper fuel for electric generating plants. It notes the long history of mine disasters, mechanization and the dominance of the industry in Central Appalachia: "Coal companies made sure west Virginia never developed an alternative economic base." But now miners' interests are aligned with companies like never before, as the industry is the fight of its life, the film notes.

The primary thrust of the documentary is coal's effect on climate and health, including coal-ash disposal, which it describes as "a ticking time bomb." Like much advocacy journalism, it gives advocates a platform to make assertions that can be exaggerated or unproven. For example, Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club's "Beyond Coal" campaign, mentions "devastating health effects" from large-scale strip mining; studies have shown correlation, but not causation. Still, New York Times reviewer Jaworokowski writes that Bonfiglio "is dedicated to giving a clear-eyed look . . . no business executives are chased down and held to task here, and politicians are blamed but only a few are named." President Trump, who ran on a pro-coal platform, is one.

Hitt utters one of her best lines as she drives through mountaintop-removal areas in West Virginia: "These places are not just physically important to people, they're spiritually important to people, and once they're gone, they're gone forever."

'Silver BBs,' not silver bullets, offered as hope for Eastern Kentucky after collapse of its coal economy

Click on the image to view a larger version

As Eastern Kentucky looks for a way to recover from a historic collapse of its coal economy, lots of new ideas are being tried or ventured, Adrian Campo-Flores reports in a roundup for The Wall Street Journal. “There’s no silver bullet to solve this,” said Peter Hille, president of the Berea-based Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, which finances and/or advises ventures in the region, told Campo-Flores. “But there could be a thousand silver BBs.”

Some groups are training former coal miners and others people to write software code. "Interapt, a Louisville technology company, created an intensive 32-week classroom and internship program in Paintsville that received federal and local funding, and pays $400 a week," the Journal reports. "The first class, which started with 50 people selected from 800 applicants, just completed the program, and Interapt has offered jobs to 22 of them so far, said Chief Operating Officer Eric Seto. Others have found work elsewhere." One Interapt developer is Alex Hughes, who ran an animation business in Prestonsburg until the coal swoon killed it. “This is a start of this new ecosystem that we’re trying to create here,” he told Campo-Flores.

Hazard Community and Technical College has trained 180 laid-off miners to work as electric linemen, and the program has a 90 percent placement rate, President Jennifer Lindon said. "Anthony Bowling . . . is happy with the pay—$18 more an hour than he earned as a miner," Campo-Floes reports. In a more innovative program, the college "has teamed up with local county governments and other entities to create a local drone training and testing facility on a former strip mine. The area—secluded, with varied topography and devoid of air traffic—is well-suited to companies seeking to develop and test unmanned aerial vehicles, said Bart Massey, operations manager for the proposed $11 million project."

Campo-Flores also notes AppHarvest, first reported on The Rural Blog March 9, which is raising money to build high-tech greenhouse on a reclaimed strip mine.

GOP blames Obama for coal's downfall, but he had best idea to revive Appalachia, says Ky. writer

Repealing the Obama administration's Stream Protection Rule has yet to create any new coal jobs and likely won't do much to revive the industry in the future, James Higdon, author and son of a Kentucky Republican state senator, writes for Politico Magazine. "Tyler White, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, couldn’t say how many jobs he thought the repeal of the rule would create, 'but I can tell you that it definitely will help stop the bleeding.'”

Higdon writes, "Even if every one of Obama’s environmental regulations—the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards; the Cross State Air Pollution Rule; the Coal Ash Rule; the Effluent Limitations Guidelines for wastewater discharge, and section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act —were all struck down tomorrow, the effect on jobs in Appalachia would still be negligible. That’s because global demand for coal is slowing, and coal from Wyoming costs a fraction of the coal from Appalachia. Even without the Stream Protection Rule, the Appalachian economy still needs to be remade."

While Republicans have blamed Obama for coal's downfall, one of the best ideas to revive the industry was actually proposed by his administration, Higdon writes. "As part of the 2016 budget, the Obama White House created something called the POWER Plus plan," which "proposed converting $1 billion from the Abandoned Mine Lands fund—a pot of money that had been growing since the Carter administration—into economic-development grants to the states with the most abandoned mines. For Kentucky alone, that would mean $20 million a year for five years. The money would likely have gone to promote other businesses sectors like manufacturing and tourism and to retrain miners for new jobs like writing computer code."

"This potential windfall was met with disinterest, if not skepticism, in the Republican-controlled Congress," Higdon writes. Jason Walsh, a senior policy advisor at the Domestic Policy Council in Obama’s White House who helped craft the plan, told him, “When we included the proposal, no Republican member of Congress was willing to touch it at first."

Rep. Hal Rogers, a Republican who represents most of Eastern Kentucky, and who has been a strong critic of Obama, saw Obama's plan as a good opportunity to revive coal communities and introduced it as the RECLAIM Act to the House in 2016—"a stand-alone bill to convert $1 billion of the Abandoned Mine Lands into economic development grants for hard-hit Appalachian areas," Higdon writes. It never went anywhere and now "it remains an open question whether this Congress will finally find a productive use for that $1 billion that is sitting largely untouched in the federal coffers."

Study in Appalachia to examine potential health impacts of living near a surface mine

Scientists from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine will study Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and the coal regions of Virginia and Tennessee to determine if living near a surface mine increases the risk of health problems, Bill Estep reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

"A number of studies have shown that mountaintop mining is associated with higher rates of cancer, heart disease and other health problems in Central Appalachia," Estep writes. "Michael S. Hendryx, a professor who did several of the studies while formerly at West Virginia University, told the Herald-Leader last year that the studies were adjusted to account for factors such as higher rates of smoking and obesity in the region."

"However, the coal industry has fiercely disputed the studies, and a 2012 industry-funded study by a Yale University researcher and others concluded that 'coal mining is not per se the cause of increased mortality in rural Appalachia,'' Estep writes. "The study by the National Academies could identify gaps in existing research and help settle some of the uncertainties about the issue."

The U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, which commissioned the two-year study, "said the research agency would choose experts to examine a 'growing amount of academic research that relates to possible correlations between increased health risks as a result of living near surface coal mine operations,'" Estep writes. "The study will involve synthesizing existing research, not conducting new field studies." (Read more)

Interior drops website claim of jobs saved by repeal of Stream Protection Rule

President Trump signing the Stream Protection
Rule repeal (Interior Department photo)

The Department of the Interior has removed a debatable statement from its website that said blocking the Stream Protection Rule prevented the loss of "7,000 clean coal jobs in 22 states," Dylan Brown reports for Greenwire. The department, which said it edited the text "for clarification," still "hails the rule's repeal as President Trump's first step to make good on promises 'to harness the power of American energy'."

The department's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, which spent nearly the entire eight years of Obama's presidency working on the rule, on Dec. 19 issued a final version with new limits on mining near waterways. In early February Congress voted to kill the rule. Trump signed the resolution Feb. 16.

The statement of 7,000 lost jobs contradicted OSMRE's "analysis during the Obama administration that the rule, which enhanced water quality and monitoring requirements at coal mines, would actually create a few hundred jobs in reclamation," Brown writes.

A 2015 National Mining Association-backed study by consulting firm Ramboll Environ "estimated as many as 77,000 coal mining jobs would be lost—a figured quoted by lawmakers after Trump signed their resolution repealing the rule," Brown writes. Glenn Kessler, a Washington Post fact checker, "said the 77,000 estimate was 'simply not credible' because it relied on a small sample of coal operators already vehemently opposed to the rule and outdated coal employment numbers," Brown writes. (Read more)

EPA fighting order requiring agency to study impact of Clean Power Plan regulations on coal jobs

The Environmental Protection Agency has asked an appeals court to reverse a ruling last year by a West Virginia federal judge ordering the agency to study the impact of Clean Power Plan regulations on job losses, Amanda Reilly reports for Greenwire. In a filing on Tuesday U.S. Department of Justice attorneys argued that the study imposes "substantive obligations," has "no basis in the statute" and is "outside the bounds of the court's authority."

U.S. District Court Judge John Preston Bailey required EPA "to submit by July 1 an evaluation of how its Clean Air Act regulations affect coal jobs, mine closures and power plant shutdowns," Reilly writes. "Bailey agreed with Murray Energy Corp., which filed a lawsuit in 2014, that EPA failed to comply with a section of the law requiring continuing economic evaluations of its regulations. He issued the July 1 deadline after finding that EPA's initial plan to comply with the provision was insufficient."

"While most of the court action in the lawsuit took place during the Obama administration, the Trump DOJ moved to appeal the ruling earlier this month," Reilly writes. "The government, in its opening brief, raised both procedural and substantive arguments against's Murray's claims in the lawsuit. Murray CEO Robert Murray is a major Trump supporter. The district court, DOJ argued, did not have the jurisdiction to hear Murray's claims because the Clean Air Act did not impose an enforceable mandatory duty on EPA to evaluate job losses."

Congress blocks Stream Protection Rule for surface mines; Trump expected to sign bill

During President Obama's final week in office, the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, which spent nearly the entire eight years of his presidency working on the Stream Protection Rule, on Dec. 19 issued a final version with new limits on coal mining near waterways.

On Thursday, the Republican-controlled Senate voted 54-45 to kill the rule, Devin Henry reports for The Hill. The House on Wednesday passed its bill 229-194. Republicans say President Trump supports the legislation, meaning the rule will come off the books as soon as he signs it into law.

"The coal industry and its congressional allies have looked for ways to kill the rule since Obama regulators began crafting it early in his term," Henry writes. "They argued the regulation would be such a financial hindrance for the coal industry that it would kill jobs in economically distressed areas of Appalachia already struggling due to the sector’s market-driven downturn."

When the rule was announced in December the U.S. Department of the Interior "said that it would protect 6,000 miles of streams and 52,000 acres of forests, preventing coal mining debris from being dumped into nearby waters," Kevin Freking and Matthew Daly report for The Associated Press. The Senate and House votes are "the first in a series of actions Republicans are expected to take in coming weeks to reverse years of what they call excessive regulation during Obama’s tenure."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who hails from the nation's No. 4 coal-producing state, called the stream rule "an attack against coal miners and their families," and that it threatened coal jobs and would cause major damage to coal-reliant communities. He told reporters, "The legislation we passed today will help stop this disastrous rule and bring relief to coal miners and their families."

Feds finalize long-debated Stream Protection Rule; senators from coal states vow to overturn it

The federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, which spent nearly the entire Obama presidency working on the Stream Protection Rule, issued a final version Monday with "new limits on coal mining near waterways," Dylan Brown reports for Greenwire. "The new guidelines stringently define 'material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area' that the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act—the guiding law of OSMRE—is designed to prevent."

"The stream rule mandates states, SMCRA's primary regulators, to require additional data gathering and monitoring at and around mine sites," Brown writes. "It also imposes new financial assurance and reclamation requirements. OSMRE leaders have said that substantial technological advances in the decades since Congress passed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act forced the need for new oversight procedures." The law passed in 1977, before mountaintop mining was fully developed.

Lawmakers from Kentucky and West Virginia, two of the biggest coal-producing states, were quick to criticize the rule. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement: “This costly regulation, along with others that are already having a devastating impact, are part of the Administration’s plan to demolish these coal communities right now and long after the president has left office." McConnell said when Congress convenes next month he plans to "introduce a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn" the regulation.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) called the rule "very alarming in its scope and potential impacts," and said, "I believe that the manner in which this rule making was executed was flawed and lacked transparency, and I will pursue legislation to ensure it does not harm our coal-mining communities and economies.” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said in a statement: "The Stream Protection Rule would cause significant harm to both surface and underground coal mines. I am confident that we will be able to use the Congressional Review Act to stop this rule from taking effect.”

EPA outlines plan to study effects of Clean Power Plan regulations on coal jobs

The Environmental Protection Agency has outlined a plan ordered by a federal judge in West Virginia to study the impact of environmental regulations on coal jobs, Amanda Reilly reports for Greenwire. EPA's Science Advisory Board "would create a panel to prepare a report on evaluating job losses. EPA would then use that information to evaluate the impact of its regulations."

"But EPA also said that it believes the district court lacks jurisdiction and that the agency has already considered its regulations' employment impact," Reilly writes. The case was brought by Robert E. Murray, CEO and owner of Murray Energy Corp., the largest independent coal producer in the U.S., an outspoken foe of the regulation. Murray released a statement in response to EPA, saying is is "abundantly clear" the agency has no intention to comply with the ruling.

In his ruling last month, District Judge John Preston Bailey "cited a section of the federal Clean Air Act which states that the EPA 'shall conduct continuing evaluations of potential loss or shifts of employment which may result from the administration or enforcement' of the law, including 'where appropriate, investigating threatened plant closures or reductions in employment allegedly resulting from such administration or enforcement'," Ken Ward Jr. wrote for the Charleston Gazette-Mail. "Bailey noted that Congress required such evaluations 'to provide information which could lead the EPA or Congress to amend . . . prior EPA actions'."

Federal judge gives EPA 14 days to rate effects of Clean Power Plan regulations on coal jobs

The Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered to study the effects of President Obama's  Clean Power Plan regulations on jobs, Ken Ward reports for the Charleston Gazette-Mail. A federal judge in West Virginia said Monday that EPA has "14 days to submit a plan for completing the study of both the general jobs impact of air-pollution rules and the specific effects of such regulations on the coal industry."

U.S. District Judge John Preston Bailey "cited a section of the federal Clean Air Act which states that the EPA 'shall conduct continuing evaluations of potential loss or shifts of employment which may result from the administration or enforcement' of the law, including 'where appropriate, investigating threatened plant closures or reductions in employment allegedly resulting from such administration or enforcement'," Ward writes. "Bailey noted that Congress required such evaluations 'to provide information which could lead the EPA or Congress to amend . . . prior EPA actions'."

The case was brought by Robert E. Murray, CEO and owner of Murray Energy Corp., the largest independent coal producer in the U.S., an outspoken foe of the regulations, Ward writes. Murray said in a statement: “This is a great day for coal miners in the United States, and for all citizens who rely on low-cost electricity in America. We will continue to vigorously pursue this lawsuit, and all of our litigation initiatives, in order to protect the lives and livelihoods of coal miners and their families, to defend the rule of law, and to preserve reliable and low-cost electricity in our country.” (Read more)

Coal baron-turned-candidate reaches $900,000 settlement in lawsuit over polluted waters

Justice (by Taz Lombardo, Roanoke Times)

Southern Coal billionaire owner Jim Justice, the Democratic nominee for governor of West Virginia, has agreed to pay a $900,000 civil penalty to settle allegations that his company's mining operations "illegally polluted Appalachian rivers and streams," Jeff Sturgeon reports for The Roanoke Times. Federal officials said they documented 23,693 violations, largely in Kentucky (nearly 13,000) and Virginia (8,800).

The federal lawsuit, "co-signed by Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia regulators, alleges that the company’s discharges 'for iron, total suspended solids, aluminum, pH and manganese' placed its facilities’ operations out of compliance with state permits and laws at various times between 2009 and 2014," Sturgeon writes. "Southern Coal’s West Virginia operations are included in the settlement, though that state isn’t a plaintiff."

The settlement "outlines compliance steps to include increased employee training, third-party audits of company facilities and the posting of water quality test results to a public website," Sturgeon writes. "Those measures, which the government said would reduce the amount of pollutant the company discharges by 5 million pounds a year, could cost an additional $4.5 million."

Fish and Wildlife moves to protect rare fish hurt by water pollution from surface coal mining

Kentucky arrow darter

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday that the Kentucky arrow darter, a small fish found only in southeastern Kentucky, has been listed as threatened, reports the Center for Biological Diversity. Water pollution from surface coal mining is largely blamed for the decline in species. The Kentucky arrow darter, once found at 74 sites, now only exists at 36. Of the 38 site losses, 16 have taken place since the mid-1990s in regions where mountaintop-removal mining occurs. Fish and Wildlife "also protected 248 miles of streams in 10 counties as 'critical habitat' for the fish.'"

Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the center, said in a statement: “The Kentucky arrow darter and the streams it depends on have been absolutely devastated by surface coal mining. Endangered Species Act protection will not only help the darter survive, but will also help protect the health of the people who have to live with polluted water and air from coal mining every single day.” (Read more)

As coal declines in Appalachia, what is its legacy in health, including mental health?

As the coal industry declines, rapidly in Central Appalachia, there are "clues suggesting that health and mental-health issues will pose enormous challenges to the affected coal communities, and will linger for decades," Georgia State University biology professor Roberta Attanasio writes for The Conversation US.

Appalachia's death rates are higher than in the nation as a whole, Attanasio notes: "A study that examined the elevated mortality rates in Appalachian coal mining areas for 1979-2005 linked coal mining to 'socioeconomic disadvantages' and concluded that the human cost of the Appalachian coal mining economy outweighed its economic benefits."

Attanasio notes research showing correlations between mountaintop-removal mining and poor health: "They show that when mountaintop removal increases, well-being decreases. However, they do not show that mountaintop removal directly causes a decline in well-being because of the nature of the pollutants and the nature of the exposure to them. Despite the intricacy of studying this area, links to adverse outcomes such as birth defects, cancer, and lung, respiratory and kidney disease, are undeniable."

Mountaintop mining may also affect some people's mental health, Attanasio writes: "People who gain a strong sense of identity from the land are most likely to experience negative outcomes. Environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined the term solastalgia as 'a feeling of chronic distress caused by negatively perceived changes to a home and its landscape,' which he observed in his native Australia due to the effects of coal mining. People who experience solastalgia lack the solace or comfort provided by their home; they long for the home environment to be the way it was before. In a study of Australia published in 2007, Albrecht and collaborators documented the dominant components of solastalgia linked to open-cut coal mining in the Upper Hunter region of New South Wales – the loss of sense of place, the feeling of threats to personal health and well-being, and a sense of injustice and/or powerlessness."

Attanasio notes a survey-based study in Central Appalachian areas with and without coal "indicated that individuals who experience environmental degradation caused by mountaintop-removal mining are at increased risk for depression. The study showed that the odds of a score indicative of risk for major depression are 40 percent higher in areas subjected to mountaintop-removal mining when compared to non-mining areas. Furthermore, the risk of major depression is statistically elevated only in mountaintop-removal areas, and not in areas subjected to other forms of mining, even after statistical control for income, education and other risks."