Lexington Herald Leader Editorial: Coal Now Under Overdue Scrutiny. I AGREE.
Coal now under overdue scrutiny
A spokesman for the coal industry accuses the Obama administration of "moving the goal posts" by holding up 79 strip-mining permits to review their impacts on water.
May we suggest a more accurate analogy?
The coal industry has been allowed to play by its own rules for so long that the industry and its apologists-in-high-places can't believe the referees might finally be coming onto the field. And they're not happy.
Probably no laws have ever been more obviously or massively violated than those that are supposed to protect this country's water from the extraction of coal.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has given the coal industry a blank check to bury and destroy hundreds of miles of mountain streams, and all their biological richness, under tons of dirt and rock displaced by strip mining.
The Corps has already approved the permits that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is rightly holding up for further review.
Other government agencies from the EPA to Kentucky's natural resources department are also guilty. Over the years they have fostered what the late U.S. District Judge Charles Haden called a "climate of lawlessness" that governs the coal industry in Appalachia.
The Bush administration's answer was to legalize the lawbreaking.
Gov. Steve Beshear last week sent a letter urging the EPA "to expedite the review process to provide clarity" to mine operations and state regulators.
The governor cited the importance of coal industry jobs in "these difficult economic times" and said that lengthy delays in ruling on permits make it impossible for businesses to plan.
If only the governor would show the same concern about Kentucky's delays in responding to dangerous discharges of selenium, a toxic heavy metal, from mine sites.
It took two years for the Division of Water to even release the results of tests for selenium, despite repeated requests under the Open Records Act by environmental groups. Kentucky has yet to enact any limits on selenium discharges.
The wheels of government move slowly, but it's good to finally see the EPA moving in the direction of protecting Kentucky's water.
If the Obama administration succeeds in bringing the rule of law and science to regulating the coal industry, that will be great news for anyone who has to take a drink of water downstream from a mining operation — and in Kentucky that includes a lot of us.
A spokesman for the coal industry accuses the Obama administration of "moving the goal posts" by holding up 79 strip-mining permits to review their impacts on water.
May we suggest a more accurate analogy?
The coal industry has been allowed to play by its own rules for so long that the industry and its apologists-in-high-places can't believe the referees might finally be coming onto the field. And they're not happy.
Probably no laws have ever been more obviously or massively violated than those that are supposed to protect this country's water from the extraction of coal.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has given the coal industry a blank check to bury and destroy hundreds of miles of mountain streams, and all their biological richness, under tons of dirt and rock displaced by strip mining.
The Corps has already approved the permits that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is rightly holding up for further review.
Other government agencies from the EPA to Kentucky's natural resources department are also guilty. Over the years they have fostered what the late U.S. District Judge Charles Haden called a "climate of lawlessness" that governs the coal industry in Appalachia.
The Bush administration's answer was to legalize the lawbreaking.
Gov. Steve Beshear last week sent a letter urging the EPA "to expedite the review process to provide clarity" to mine operations and state regulators.
The governor cited the importance of coal industry jobs in "these difficult economic times" and said that lengthy delays in ruling on permits make it impossible for businesses to plan.
If only the governor would show the same concern about Kentucky's delays in responding to dangerous discharges of selenium, a toxic heavy metal, from mine sites.
It took two years for the Division of Water to even release the results of tests for selenium, despite repeated requests under the Open Records Act by environmental groups. Kentucky has yet to enact any limits on selenium discharges.
The wheels of government move slowly, but it's good to finally see the EPA moving in the direction of protecting Kentucky's water.
If the Obama administration succeeds in bringing the rule of law and science to regulating the coal industry, that will be great news for anyone who has to take a drink of water downstream from a mining operation — and in Kentucky that includes a lot of us.
Labels: The Environment
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 10:34 AM
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