EPA Urges Revoking West Virginia Mountaintop Mining Permit. By John M. Broder, NYTimes, 10/16/10. “A top federal regulator has recommended revoking the permit for one of the nation’s largest planned mountaintop removal mining projects, saying it would be devastating to miles of West Virginia streams and the plant and animal life they support. In a report submitted last month and made public on Friday, Shawn M. Garvin, EPA regional administrator for the Mid-Atlantic, said that Arch Coal’s proposed Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County should be stopped because it ‘would likely have unacceptable adverse effects on wildlife.’
“In 2007, the Bush administration approved the project, which would involve dynamiting the tops off mountains over 2,278 acres to get at the coal beneath while dumping the resulting rubble, known as spoil, into nearby valleys and streams. The Obama administration announced last year that it would review the decision, prompting the mine owner, Arch Coal, based in St. Louis, to sue. In its review, the E.P.A. found that the project would bury more than seven miles of the Pigeonroost Branch and Oldhouse Branch streams under 110 million cubic yards of spoil, killing everything in them and sending downstream a flood of contaminants, toxic substances and life-choking algae. Kim Link, a spokeswoman for Arch Coal, said in a statement that the company intended to ‘vigorously’ challenge the recommendation. ‘If the E.P.A. proceeds with its unlawful veto of the Spruce permit -- as it appears determined to do -- West Virginia’s economy and future tax base will suffer a serious blow,’ Ms. Link said. She said the company planned to spend $250 million on the project, creating 250 jobs and tens of millions of dollars in tax revenues in a struggling region.”
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