WASHINGTON—The Obama administration on Thursday announced steps to reduce the environmental destruction caused by mountaintop coal mining in six states.
The government will seek to eliminate the expedited reviews that have made it easier for mining companies to blast off Appalachian mountaintops and discard the rubble into valleys where streams flow.
The agreement among three federal agencies also includes changes to tighten federal oversight and environmental screening of the mountaintop coal mining in Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
Nancy Sutley, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers will set clear standards, ensuring that communities in coal-mining regions have clean streams and drinking water.
Mining waste dumped into waterways can diminish water quality for fish and other aquatic organisms, and taint sources of drinking water.
Mountaintop mines in the states where the practices is most used—West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee—produce nearly 130 million tons of coal each year, or about 14 percent of the coal that produces electricity, and employ about 14,000 people.
“The Obama administration has serious concerns about the impacts of mountaintop coal mining on our natural resources and on the health and welfare of Appalachian communities,” Sutley said. “Within this plan the Obama administration is doing at all it can under existing laws and regulations to curb most environmentally destructive impacts of mountaintop coal mining.”
A spokeswoman for the National Mining Association said the industry was not consulted on the deal and had not seen it. “We are disappointed this was not a fully transparent process and that the concerns of those closest to surface mining operations were not fully aired,” Carol Raulston said.
She said the streamlined permitting process made reviews more efficient. “This announcement takes all of that away,” she said.
President Barack Obama, as a candidate, expressed concern about the mountaintop mining. At one point, he said it was tearing up the Appalachian Mountains.
His administration has cast a more critical eye on the process than did the Bush administration, which was accused of granting permits with little scrutiny. In March, the EPA announced it would more take a closer look at about 150 mountaintop mining permits pending before the Army Corps to ensure they will not harm streams and wetlands.
The agency objected to some projects, but has said dozens probably would go ahead.
In April, the Interior Department asked a federal judge to vacate a Bush rule that makes it easier to dump mining waste near waterways.
The expedited reviews, in place since 1982, allow mining companies proposing similar projects to get a general permit under the Clean Water Act, rather than being evaluated on a case-by-case basis. About 30 percent of mountaintop removal projects are permitted under the general permit to discharge waste into streams, according to administration officials.
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AP Press Business Writer Tim Huber in Charleston, W.Va., contributed to this report.
