The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking a closer look at the controversial practice of mountaintop coal mining, placing 200 proposed projects on hold as it studies the impacts on streams and wetlands. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said that before issuing new permits to blast away the
tops of mountains to get at coal seams below, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA must more thoroughly study the effects of a practice that already has buried more than 1,000 streams in Appalachia in mining waste. Mountaintop mining expanded under the Bush administration, and last month a federal appeals court said the corps had authority to issue mining permits without more extensive reviews. Coal companies have proposed roughly 200 new mountaintop removal projects, which would bury another 200 miles of streams. But Jackson said these projects will not go forward without a more exhaustive environmental review. In a letter, Jackson said the suspension reflected “EPA’s considerable concern regarding the environmental impact these projects would have on fragile habitats and streams.” Mountaintop mining in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee employs 14,000 people and supplies coal to electric utilities serving 25 million customers.
Climate Change Institute