The Obama administration's EPA announced a crackdown on mountaintop removal (MTR) mines back in March, and yet the approvals keep coming for new mines. No public announcements are made, and no documents released, but big coal gets to keep tearing off the tops of mountains, extracting the coal, then filling valleys with the waste.
The EPA gave the go ahead to the Army Corp of Engineers to give a Clean Water Act permit to CONSOL Energy for the Peg Fork Surface Mine in Mingo County, WV. The administration approved all eight valley fill waste piles proposed by the company, with the provision that additional water testing is done before six of those fills are constructed.
Despite promises of transparency from the administration in the review process, the public had no access to the permit documents. Conservationists and environmentalists continue to be appalled by the business-as-usual attitude from the EPA.
"We are disappointed that the administration has approved a new mountaintop removal mine without making any commitment to adopt new regulations or policies that would end this destructive practice. While we appreciate that the Obama administration is taking a harder look at mountaintop removal coal mining, unless that results in decisions that end the irreversible destruction of streams, the harder look isn't going to do the job." - Ed Hopkins, director of Sierra Club environmental quality program
And with the overruling of the proposed changes to mining regulations (which would have overturned the Bush administration's gutting of water quality protections) by a federal judge, what this says to me is "Go ahead and rape the mountains and pollute the streams. We want cheap energy, and we don't care about the water or the air or the land, because we don't live there, and we don't have to look at it."
Take a gander at the accompanying video and tell me if you think MTR makes any sense at all…
A little theme music for you: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss - I get on my knees and pray, we don't get fooled again. Click to hear the soundtrack:
Comment by: PT (David Alexander) (Aug-19-2009) Web site
As an American close-up with the situation, my guess is that Obama is trying to "go easy" as well as invite Republican participation because experience has proved that the American public supports at least the appearance of trying to work together. I am nervous about this great willingness to compromise and take it slow by Obama, but I need to understand more about why the EPA is allowing these projects. I wonder whether EPA managers are themselves for or against this kind of mining. Maybe it takes time to get them to re-examine long-comfortable views? So, WH, I am certainly against this practice, but for myself the Obama situation needs a couple of more years to play out before we can judge results. I sure hope he does not compromise on the current healthcare proposal and its public option, which is already a compromise away from the single-payer solution!
Comment by: Wavehunter (William Coffin) (Aug-18-2009) Web site
No. Mountaintop removal makes no sense at all, unless you're one of the few who will profit from it.
The new boss being the same as the old boss is perhaps an exaggeration, but only a small one. The main difference is that what was inexcusable under Bush now seems excusable under Obama. Some people have been giving Obama a chance, I suppose, though he's now more than six months into his presidency. Others are incurably partisan.
The US political scene of 2009 reminds me a lot of the British one back in 1997. After years of Conservative rule, Tony Blair was elected in a wave of hysteria to the theme tune, 'Things can only get better'. A few things did get better, but a lot more stayed the same. And some got worse: the illegal invasion of Iraq; 42 days detention without trial; CCTV on every street corner; inequality. Nothing in Blair's rhetoric prepared Britons for the reality of his spell in office.
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Fossil Fuel
PT (David Alexander)
Wavehunter (William Coffin)
