4. MINING: EPA moves to halt massive W.Va mountaintop permit (09/08/2009)

Eric Bontrager, E&E reporter

U.S. EPA is asking the Army Corps of Engineers to stop one of the largest mountaintop-mining permits ever issued in West Virginia, saying it has new information showing the project would do severe environmental damage.

In a letter to the corps last week, EPA said it wanted to halt a permit for a Mingo Logan Coal Co. operation in Logan County.

The Spruce Fork No. 1 permit covers 2,278 acres and authorizes impacts to more than 40,000 linear feet of stream channels by rock and other sediments.

EPA sent the Sept. 3 letter ahead of an expected announcement by the Obama administration this week about whether it will allow another 86 mountaintop mining permits to proceed or whether some will be halted for additional environmental analysis.

The corps issued the Spruce Fork No. 1 permit in January 2007 after nearly 10 years of litigation, only to have it stalled again by a new lawsuit from environmental groups.

Some mining has continued at the site during the latest round of litigation, but EPA now says that new data collected since the permit's issuance suggest that the corps should put the permit on hold.

"Recent data and analysis have revealed that downstream water quality impacts have not been adequately addressed by the permit, especially in light of clear evidence that effluent from valley fill sedimentation ponds is very likely to elevate conductivity and thus negatively affect healthy aquatic communities," EPA Region 3's acting administrator, William Early, told the corps's Huntington, W.Va., district office in the letter last week.

The letter notes that the mine is located in the Little Coal River watershed, which has the largest number of impaired stream miles in the state's Central Appalachian Ecoregion, with mining identified as one of the chief causes of those impairments.

The final environmental impact statement for the mine concluded that it would cause an increase in solids initially and then would decline to pre-mine conditions later, but EPA said many scientific assessments and state watershed reports "show that this assertion is not technically supportable."

EPA said it found that given existing data concerning impaired streams near the mine, combined with other scientific assessments, the mine may in fact cause further water degradation in violation of the state's water quality standards.

"This increase in conductivity impairs aquatic life use, is persistent over time and cannot be easily mitigated or removed from stream channels," the letter states.

In response to the letter, the federal judge overseeing litigation against the permit has granted a request by the corps for a 30-day stay in the permit's legal proceedings while the agency examines EPA's letter.

Ginger Mullins, chief of the regulatory branch at the corps's Huntington district, said the agency has just begun reviewing the letter. Based on that evaluation, she said, elements of the permit could be suspended while changes are made or the permit could be allowed to move forward after the litigation ends.
'Some real gumption'

Despite raising similar concerns about the mine's potential water quality impacts, the Spruce permit is not among the 48 permits EPA re-examined earlier this year as part of its review of mountaintop mining.

EPA put six of those permits were on hold due to their potential impacts on mountain water quality, but allowed another 42 to proceed while promising to review more permits in the months ahead. A decision on 86 additional permits is expected later this week.

Though Matt Wasson of Appalachian Voices, an advocacy group, conceded that the letter is not an indication that all of the 86 permits will be upheld or rejected, EPA's assertion that the 2-year-old Spruce permit did not adequately consider relevant data is a good sign for mountaintop opponents that permits will be subjected to tougher environmental analysis.

"It's hard to know what sort of pressures ... are coming from the top, but the scientists in the regional offices are showing some real gumption," Wasson said.