EPA Weighs in on Mountaintop Permits

  • In mountaintop removal mining, explosives are used to get at coal that's close to the surface. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress)

The Environmental Protection
Agency has approved one
mountaintop removal coal
mining operation. But, Lester
Graham reports, it’s asking a
federal court to delay another
mine in the same state:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection
Agency has approved one
mountaintop removal coal
mining operation. But, Lester
Graham reports, it’s asking a
federal court to delay another
mine in the same state:

The Environmental Protection Agency says it supports permits for one mine in West Virginia because operators agreed to some environmental protections.

But the EPA is asking a federal court to delay a decision on another mine. The Spruce Number One mine – owned by a subsidiary of Arch Coal – is one of the largest mountainop removal mines ever proposed in the area.The EPA says it’s concerned the mine would bury streams and contaminate water.

Bill Raney is the President of the West Virginia Coal Association. In a recent interview he said regulators are changing the rules.

“And it’s punishing the people here with uncertainty, not knowing what the future holds as to whether you’re going to get the next permit and are you going to be able to mine the coal, are you going to be able to use it in the power plant.”

The EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, said in a statement, the EPA is actually bringing clarity to the process.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Mountaintop Mining Protest

  • One of the organizers of the rally opposing mountaintop removal coal mining scheduled the protest to coincide with the first day of climate talks in Copenhagen. (Photo by Sandra Sleight-Brennan)

World leaders are in Copenhagen,
Denmark where the debate over
what to do about climate change
is getting loud sometimes. But
in West Virginia coal country, the
debate is even louder. Lester
Graham reports:

Transcript

World leaders are in Copenhagen,
Denmark where the debate over
what to do about climate change
is getting loud sometimes. But
in West Virginia coal country, the
debate is even louder. Lester
Graham reports:

When the West Virginia Coal Association heard about plans for a rally to protest mountaintop removal coal mining, it issued an email. The Associaiton wanted supporters of the coal industry to hold a counter protest to the quote, “liberal enviro-whacko’s rally.”

(sound of protest and truck horns)

The coal mining supporters not only showed up, but they brought in some big trucks, horns blaring to try to disrupt the protest speakers at the rally in front of the offices of West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality.

The Coal industry’s message was simple. Coal means jobs. Jobs mean paychecks.

But the protestors against mountaintop removal coal mining say there are more important things.

One of those speakers was Maria Gunnoe. She’s a coal miner’s daughter who’s worked against the environmental damage of blowing off the tops of Appalaichan mountains to get to the coal. The blasted debris has been dumped into valleys, damaging streams and water supplies.

“I challenge you. You think it’s hard to live without a paycheck? Try living with nothing to give your children to drink. Paycheck’s not important when you don’t have water to give your children.”

Maria Gunnoe has been there. She lives in a valley just downhill from a debris fill. She testified against the coal companies in a court case to stop them from dumping debris in streams. Let’s just say she’s not a popular figure among the pro-coal folks.

Bo Webb lives in Coal River Valley. He’s one of the organizers of the rally opposing mountaintop removal coal mining. He scheduled the protest the same day climate talks in Copenhagen started. He’d liked to see the people where he lives get something from those negotiations.

“I’m hoping what comes out of Copenhagen for here would be a message that some of these miners could start understanding and stop manipu- allowing- themselves to be manipulated by a coal industry that’s got one concern, and that’s profits.”

At the counter-rally, many of the coal mining supporters did not want to talk to news people. One guy who would talk is Gary Finley. He’s from Ohio and sells equipment to the coal mining industry.

“You know, this industry is regulated, heavily regulated, now. It has been since, what, 1977? (Yep.) So, you know, we’re doing everything that’s dictated by law in the mining of coal.”

When asked about the future of coal, Finley hesitated.

“Well, (laughs) right now I’m uncertain. I can tell you what I hope it’ll be. I hope it continues. You know, we’ve got a lot of coal in these mountains. I don’t believe the people in this country realize how important coal is to the economy of the eastern United States, people realize when they go into their homes and turn on their light switch and the electric comes on, if we don’t mine coal, that’s gonna be- it’s done.”

The protest was a lot of passionate speakers, a lot of booing, and a lot of truck horns.

But what irritated the coal mining supporters more than anything seemed to be the idea that outsiders were coming to West Virginia to tell them what to do. And the liberal outsider that aggravated them most was environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Junior. Kennedy calls fossil fuels a deadly addiction that’s wrecking the country, and says mountaintop removal coal mining is destroying communities.

“And, you know, we need to figure out ways to power our country that don’t compromise the aspirations of future generations, don’t compromise their potential for prosperity, for wholesome, dignified communities.”

In the end, nothing was settled in West Virginia, just as nothing will be settled in Copenhagen.

But at the local level and the international level, people are talking about fossil fuels differently. Some see a bright future in renewable, sustainable energy and preserved forested mountains, while others feel their lives and their livelihoods threatened.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Mountaintop Mining Applications Held Up

  • In mountaintop removal mining, explosives are used to get at coal that's close to the surface. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress)

The Environmental Protection Agency
is holding up nearly 80 permit
applications for coal mining projects
because of concerns about about water
quality. Tamara Keith
reports this is creating a different
kind of concern in Appalachian coal
country:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency
is holding up nearly 80 permit
applications for coal mining projects
because of concerns about about water
quality. Tamara Keith
reports this is creating a different
kind of concern in Appalachian coal
country:

The applications involve mountain top removal coal mining. Explosives are used to get at coal that’s close to the surface.

In the past, the mining companies have been allowed to fill in valleys with the leftover rock and dirt. But the EPA is concerned that streams are getting buried and polluted so the agency is now giving that practice a serious second look.

Carol Raulston is with the National Mining Association. She says holding up those permits have people in the mining towns of Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee worried about losing their jobs.

“You really can’t operate these mines and employ people at them unless you’re able to construct the fills and in many of these communities they are the sole employer.”

An EPA spokesperson says protecting drinking water and coal mining jobs are both important. The agency says both can be done.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

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A Look Into Coal Country

  • The filmmakers want more Americans to understand that when we flick on a light switch – it is not a meaningless act. It takes electricity. And that takes coal. (Photo courtesy of Coal Country)

When the Senate picks up debate
on the climate change bill, it
will be – in part – deciding the
future of coal as an energy source
in the U.S. About half the nation’s
electricity currently comes from
coal. And a lot of it comes from
the Appalachian region. A new
documentary film sets out to show
how mining for coal affects the people
who live in Coal Country. Julie Grant
spoke with the film’s producers:

Transcript

When the Senate picks up debate
on the climate change bill, it
will be – in part – deciding the
future of coal as an energy source
in the U.S. About half the nation’s
electricity currently comes from
coal. And a lot of it comes from
the Appalachian region. A new
documentary film sets out to show
how mining for coal affects the people
who live in Coal Country. Julie Grant
spoke with the film’s producers:

Mari-Lynn Evans and Phylis Geller set out to make the movie Coal Country
because they wanted to show how different people are affected by coal
mining.

They found lots of activists, and regular citizens, who would talk with
them. Plenty of people were willing to show the thick black water in their
toilet tanks. They wanted to show the black soot covering their cars.
They wanted to talk about the health problems they live with. And they all
blamed the coal industry.

Evans also wrote to coal supporters – to get their side of the story on
camera. The answer?

“No. That was their response. I sent out requests to the coal industry,
to coal companies and to suppliers of the coal industry.”

Evans brother is a coal miner. He supports mountain top removal.

(sound of explosions)

As we see in the movie, that’s when coal companies blow off the entire
top of a mountain to get to the coal. Many people consider it the most
polluting and environmentally devastating type of mining.

But Evans says not even her own brother would do an interview about it.

“And when I said, ‘why won’t you talk on camera? You feel so
passionately that coal is wonderful and mountaintop removal is actually for
the environment as well as the economy.’ And his response to me always
was, ‘oh I would never speak on camera without getting permission from
the company I work for.’”

The filmmakers heard that a lot. And no coal miners ever did get
permission to talk on camera.

In the movie, we do hear from Don Blankenship, head of Massey Energy. He
spoke at a public hearing about the need to ease environmental restrictions
on coal mining.

“We had nearly 800 employees up ‘til Friday. We had to lay 8 off. I
think that might be just the tip of the iceberg if we don’t our rules
changed how we mine in the state.”

Anti-coal activists at the public hearing explain how the coal companies
use that kind of intimidation to control miners.

“I think people are scared that they will lose their jobs and be flipping
burgers. You look out and that’s all you see. You see mining and
flipping burgers. And, I argue, that the coal companies want it that way.
They want that to be the only option. That’s the only way they could get
support for how they treat their workers and how they treat this land.
This would never happen in a place that wasn’t poor. Never.”

In the movie, some coal miners stand up at the public meeting to defend the
companies they work for. One explains the coal industry has provided him a
good salary.

Miner One: “For the last 14 years, the coal industry has supported myself
and my wife and my 3 children.”

Miner Two: “When the last one of you so-called environmentalists leave
the state, when the rest of us leave for North Carolina, turn out the
lights. Oh, wait a minute, there won’t be no lights. No coal, no
lights.”

(music)

The filmmakers want more Americans to understand that when we flick on a
light switch – it is not a meaningless act. It takes electricity. And
that takes coal.

And, as anti-coal activist Judy Bonds says in the movie, coal is tearing
apart West Virginia.

“It is a civil war; it’s families against families. It’s brother
against brother.”

Or – in the case of filmmaker Mari Lynn-Evans – brother against
sister.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Mountaintop Removal Continues

  • In his last days, President Bush changed rules that made it easier to blow off the tops of mountains to mine for coal. (Photo by Sandra Sleight-Brennan)

The Obama Administration has
approved handing out as many
as 42 new permits to mining
companies for mountaintop
removal coal mining. Lester
Graham reports a lot of people
expected the Environmental
Protection Agency to block
new mountaintop removal mining
in Appalachia:

Transcript

The Obama Administration has
approved handing out as many
as 42 new permits to mining
companies for mountaintop
removal coal mining. Lester
Graham reports a lot of people
expected the Environmental
Protection Agency to block
new mountaintop removal mining
in Appalachia:

Environmentalists say this is the most environmentally destructive kind of coal mining there is. It blows off the tops of mountains, fills in valleys, pollutes creeks and water supplies.

But the EPA does not have the authority to block it with no reason. The agency has to follow the permitting process in place.

Oliver Bernstein is with the environmental group the Sierra Club.

“They are operating under a fundamentally flawed legal framework around mountaintop removal and so the Obama Administration will need to take the bold steps to enact the rule-makings that will help to end this process completely.”

Environmentalists are calling for the White House Council on Environmental Quality to step in and do whatever is necessary to stop the mountaintop removal coal mining.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Mountaintop Mining (Part One)

  • In his last days, President Bush changed rules that made it easier to blow off the tops of mountains to mine for coal. (Photo by Sandra Sleight-Brennan)

One of the last things the Bush administration did was change a rule to allow coal mining companies to dump debris into streams. That means one mining company will be able to remove one of the last mountaintops in a West Virginia county. Sandra Sleight-Brennan reports:

Transcript

One of the last things the Bush administration did was change a rule to allow coal mining companies to dump debris into streams. That means one mining company will be able to remove one of the last mountaintops in a West Virginia county. Sandra Sleight-Brennan reports:

Gary Anderson takes me out on his back porch and all you can see is Coal River Mountain. Even on a cold, gray winter day, it’s beautiful.

“All of that mountain range of there, that is Coal River Mountain– that mountain runs for about 3 miles up there.”

When he retired, Gary and his wife Barbara moved from Connecticut back to her family home in Colcord, West Virginia.

“That’s basically what brought us back. Is the mountains and the beauty. We grew up here and we came back to spend the rest of our days here. We thought were coming back to what we remember– the beautiful mountains. And really they just started doing the mountaintop removal over here in the past couple years.”

Other mountains in the area– Cherry Pond Mountinan and Kayford Mountain have been flattened so energy companies could get to the coal inside them.
Over one million acres in West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky have already been leveled to mine the thin vein of coal.

The mining companies dynamite the tops off to get to the coal underneath.

“Once in awhile you’ll see a big puff of dust go up in the air like a bomb has been dropped and in awhile it will settle down and then it will happen again the next day.”

Mountains are shorted and flattened–- often by 100’s of feet to get to a 14-inch seam of coal. What the dynamite loosens is dumped in the valleys. Thousands of miles of streams have been covered over and nature destroyed.

It’s pretty simple. They put dynamite in the mountain and blow it up.

Joe Lovett is the Executive Director of the Appalachian Center on the Economy and the Environment. He’s been fighting mountaintop removal for the past 10 years.

It’s like a layer cake. The mountain is like a layer cake and that coal is the icing. The dirt and rock in between is the cake. There is a lot more dirt and rock and mining waste than there is coal. And when they blow up the mountain the dirt and rock swell. So they have even a bigger problem because they have more material than they know what to do with. So, as they blow the mountain up they need to find something to do with the dirt and rock and they dump it into the streams and the valleys.

Dumping into streams was stopped. The Surface Mining Act’s Stream Buffer rule protected the streams. But the new Bush administration rule changes that.

Joe Lovett says that Coal River Mountain fair game for Massey Energy to blow the top off and fill the valleys.

“We have always believed that the rule prevented these fills, that and I guess so did the coal industry and the Office of Surface Mining because this has been the main thing that the coal industry has wanted from the Bush administration for a long time is that change in this rule.”

Lovett says its not good for the environment and it’s not good for the local economy.

“We are taking mountains that could support sustainable timber jobs for generations and, in a few short years, destroying them forever and mining them in such a way that those forests will never come back.”

The mining industry argues that we need this inexpensive energy source in order to be energy independent. But, says Lovett and other environmentalists, if valley fills were outlawed tomorrow the cost of coal for our electric rates would only go up by pennies.

I’ll also talk to an official of the mining industry about why this type of mining needs to continue. The fact it provides American energy and jobs and that West Virginia’s economy depends upon it.

Back at Gary Anderson’s home, he wonders how it came to this.

Who gave them the right to blow the tops of mountains off to get the coal? I mean, that’s what gets me. Where, back in time, did they get the permission to come in and just below the mountains up? It’s really unbelievable. You can’t go back and reconstruct a mountain that’s been here for hundreds of millions of years. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”

But, the mining companies now have the legal right to level the top of Coal River Mountain and fill up the valleys and streams above Anderson’s home.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sandra Sleight-Brennan.

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Mountaintop Mining (Part Three)

  • Christians for the Mountains field worker Robert "Sage" Russo standing on Kayford Mountain overlooking an MTR site in West Virginia (Photo courtesy of Christians for the Mountains)

Environmentalists have been fighting to stop mountain top removal coal mining for
decades. They say they want to preserve the mountains, the water that’s polluted by the
mining and the people. But many of the people don’t want the help. They want the jobs
provided by the mining operations. Sandra Sleight Brennan reports the struggle
between the two sides is complicated. Now churches and synagogues are introducing
religion into that struggle:

Transcript

Environmentalists have been fighting to stop mountain top removal coal mining for
decades. They say they want to preserve the mountains, the water that’s polluted by the
mining and the people. But many of the people don’t want the help. They want the jobs
provided by the mining operations. Sandra Sleight Brennan reports the struggle
between the two sides is complicated. Now churches and synagogues are introducing
religion into that struggle:

The line drawn between environmentalists who want to stop mountain removal
coal mining and the coal miners who depend on it for jobs has always been
smudged.

Often the environmental activists had relatives and close friends who worked for
the mining companies. There aren’t a lot of jobs in the Appalachian Mountains.
Of the jobs that are there, the coal mining jobs pay the most.

In the small Appalachian towns in the coal fields, the God-fearing families who
depended on the mining jobs have often seen the environmentalists as people
who were out to destroy their way of life.

But lately some people are seeing things differently. More than a dozen churches
and synagogues have passed resolutions against mountaintop removal mining.

Allan Johnson is the co-founder of Christians for the Mountains, a group that’s
sided with the environmentalists.

“It’s a serious issue, ultimately it is a moral issue and, as a moral issue, we’re appealing
to the religious communities, the Christian communities. We’ve got to do right. We
cannot destroy God’s creation in order to have a temporal economy.”

And Johnson is getting help from other Christians. Rebekah Eppling is an
Ameri-Corps VISTA volunteer. She’s working with Christians for the Mountains.

“We present ourselves that we are a Christian organization and we are working for
Creation Care and we are following the Biblical mandate to take care of God’s planet – it
brings a different sense of what we’re doing to people. So a lot of people who
traditionally wouldn’t be interested all the sudden start to realize the different aspects of
it. It kind of hits a different spark for them.”

Creation Care is how some Evangelical Christians describe their brand of
environmentalism. One of the most prominent spokesman for Creation Care is
Richard Cizik. He’s a former Vice President of the National Association of
Evangelicals.

“We say Creation Care because first of all we believe the earth was created and
second of all we know from God’s word in Genesis that we are to care and protect
it. So, we call it Creation Care.”

The group, Christians for the Mountains, works with many different
denominations. They teach people who want to get involved about the issues
surrounding mining. They go into detail about how the short term benefit of the
destructive form of mining not only alters the mountains, but pollutes the streams
and ultimately the drinking water. They point out that once the coal fields are
mined, the jobs are gone and the communities are left to live with the damage to
the environment.

Volunteer Rebekah Eppling says there’s resistance to the message.

“The term environmentalist is kind of a dirty word in the coalfields region. Since we are a
religious organization that puts us in a unique spot.”

“We do get some pretty harsh criticism.”

Allen Johnson with Christians for the Mountains.

“We are concerned about people’s jobs. We want to have a healthy economy. And it is
not a healthy economy in that area. If you go down into the area with the mountaintop
removal is going on it in some of the impoverished areas in the country.”

Like the more traditional kinds of environmentalists, these Creation Care
environmentalists have ties to the community. Eppling says her family comes
from an area that’s targeted for coal mining in the near future.

“My family is very supportive of what I’m doing. Because they see the place where they
used to live are now being destroyed. The mountain very close to where my
grandmother and father grew up its being blasted away. My father and his family are
from Boone County – which is one of the big coal producing areas. Coal River runs right
behind his house where he grew up.”

The Christians for the Mountains know the families that depend on the coal
mining don’t always understand why anyone would want to stop one of the very
few industries that offer good paying jobs in the region. But Rebekah Eppling
says there has to be a better way than blowing up the tops of the mountains and
filling the valleys with rubble.

“It’s not just environmentalist versus workers. It’s a very complex. It’s not just about
stopping coal – it’s about bringing in more options for people.”

And some of those options include preserving the environment by finding alternatives for
the region – such as wind energy, tourism, and not letting the mining companies decide
the fate of the Appalachian Mountains and the people who live there.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sandra Sleight-Brennan.

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