We will have a "take action" webpage on this next week. We should generate as many comments as possible so we can say that the Admin. is ignoring the public (once again!) wishes on this issue.
Pls forward the News Release as you wish, best, paul
---------- Forwarded message ----------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 22, 2007
Contact:
Cindy Rank, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy (304) 924-5802
Dianne Bady, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (740) 886-5796
Vernon Haltom, Coal River Mountain Watch (304) 854-2182
Jared Saylor, Earthjustice (202) 667-4500
Jim Hecker, Public Justice (202) 797-8600
Ed Hopkins, Sierra Club (202) 675-7908
Bush Administration Proposes Repeal of Stream Protection Rule to Ease Legal
Limits on Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
Protective "buffer zone" for streams ignored under new OSM plan
Washington,
D.C. – Continuing a dangerous and irresponsible trend, the
federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) this week will announce plans to try
again to make stream annihilation legal by exempting coal mining wastes
from a 1983 regulation.
For years, the agency has ignored the law and allowed thousands of miles of
headwater and perennial streams in Appalachia to be permanently buried by
coal companies under millions of tons of waste generated by mountaintop
removal coal mining. Known as the "stream buffer zone rule," this
decades-old regulation has prohibited surface coal-mining activities from
disturbing areas within 100 feet of streams. A copy of the proposed changes
to the buffer zone rule is available at:
http://www.earthjustice.org/library/legal_docs/draft-environmental-impact-statement-on-the-stream-buffer-zone-rule.pdf
"The Bush administration just doesn't give up in its quest to give away
more and more legal protections to the mountaintop removal polluters," said
Joan Mulhern, Senior Legislative Counsel for Earthjustice. "Despite the
federal government's own studies showing widespread, harmful, and
irreversible stream loss in the region, the OSM proposes exempting the most
harmful mountaintop removal mining activities from the buffer zone rule.
Once again, OSM is demonstrating that it is not an effective regulator for
the public, but the 'Office for Slicing Mountains' and 'Office of Stream
Mangling' for coal companies."
The new exemption is the latest chapter in a long-running effort by the
Bush administration to allow coal companies to avoid compliance with both
the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (administered by OSM) and
the Clean Water Act. According to OSM's own figures, 1,208 miles of
streams in Appalachia were destroyed from 1992 to 2002, and regulators
approved 1,603 more valley fills between 2001 and 2005 that will destroy
535 more miles of streams. Those actions were taken in defiance of the
plain language of the existing rule. Under the plan announced this week,
OSM proposes to change the rule to conform with its deviant behavior. It
would exempt from the stream buffer zone rule those very mountaintop
removal activities that are most destructive to streams, including
"permanent excess spoil fills, and coal waste disposal facilities" – in
other words, giant valley fills and sludge-filled lagoons.
"OSM has chosen to turn its back onirreplaceable water resources of the
Appalachian region," said Cindy Rank with West Virginia Highlands
Conservancy."Headwater streams are the lifeblood of the mountains and
those of us privileged enough to livein those mountains.This new
interpretation of the buffer zone rule is an unholy reversal of the
original intent of the Surface Mine Act,which wasto protect communities
and streams, not bury them."
The effort to repeal the buffer zone rule dates back to 2004, when OSM
proposed repealing the Reagan-era rule to allow coal companies to
accelerate mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia. In response to
protests from coalfield residents and conservation groups, OSM agreed it
would do an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) before changing the
longstanding rule. But in its new draft EIS, OSM rejected and failed to
analyze all alternatives that would have restricted stream filling. In its
own words, "OSM would not anticipate a major shift in on-the-ground
consequences from any of the alternatives." Most egregious is that the
agency did not even consider the effect of enforcing the stream buffer zone
rule as written.
"OSM summarily rejected all alternatives that would reduce harm and only
considered those that would allow stream burials to continue at the same
rate as in the past," said Jim Hecker, Environmental Enforcement Director
at Public Justice. "OSM's own report shows that valley fills harm
downstream water quality but this proposal does nothing to address it."
The agency also assumes all stream loss will be fully mitigated, even
though it freely admits that stream mitigation has generally failed. "While
proven methods exist for larger stream channel restoration and creation,
the state of the art in creating smaller headwater streams onsite has not
reached the level of reproducible success," the OSM wrote. "Attempts to
reestablish the functions of headwater streams…have achieved little success
to date."
"The coal companies have yet to show that they can successfully recreate
streams after they completely destroy these mountains and bury these
waters, yet OSM still gives them this major exemption from the law," said
Dianne Bady, with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. "These headwater
streams are the sources of our drinking water and our heritage, and this
administration is knowingly allowing them to be buried and poisoned."
This wholesale exemption for mountaintop removal mining will have
significant impact to downstream water quality, permanently filling and
destroying important headwaters that feed larger waters that function as
drinking water sources and fishing and recreational waters for thousands of
Americans. Already, mountaintop removal mining has flattened more than
500,000 acres and permanently buried 2,000 miles of streams.
"The OSM essentially wants to destroy our most valuable, life-giving
resource to extract a filthy, polluting resource," said Vernon Haltom of
Coal River Mountain Watch. "We who live near mountaintop removal sites are
having our future sustainability destroyed for someone else's short-term
profits."
"This proposal amounts to a stamp of approval for the nation's most
destructive form of coal mining," said Ed Hopkins, Director of Sierra
Club's Environmental Quality program. "Instead of loosening protections for
our waters, we should be strengthening our commitment to cleaner, renewable
sources of energy that can protect our communities, boost the economy and
help fight global warming."
--
Paul Wilson
Sierra Club
Wildlife & Endangered Species Comm.
504 Jefferson Ave
Charles Town, WV 25414-1130
Phone: 304-725-4360
Cell: 304-279-6975