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Mary Anne Hitt is the Director, Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign.
If you think mountaintop removal coal mining’s days are over, you’re wrong. In 2013, Virginia issued nine new surface mining permits and two acreage expansions, West Virginia issued 25 new permits, and Kentucky issued 30 new permits which will destroy mountains and threaten nearby communities.
An excellent new report out from the Alliance for Appalachia evaluates the Obama Administration’s track record on mountaintop removal, and it does not give the Administration high marks for its efforts to date. The report finds that federal agencies have not followed through with initiatives intended to address mountaintop removal, and it outlines specific next steps the Obama Administration can take to tackle the worst harms to the region’s land, water, and communities.
From the report: “In June, 2009, the Obama administration created a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among federal agencies responsible for protecting Appalachian communities from the extreme damage of mountaintop removal coal mining. Though grassroots groups realized this MOU would not fully end the practice of mountaintop removal, nor ensure a just and sustainable economy in our region, citizen groups saw this MOU as a small, though significant, step in the Obama Administration taking much needed federal‐level action to address the intersecting health, environmental, political and economic challenges our region continues to face.”
Not enough has been done to stop coal companies from blowing up mountains and tossing the rubble into neighboring streams, poisoning waterways and economically devastating Appalachian communities.
The Alliance for Appalachia’s report does a top-notch job of documenting the continued destruction wrought by mountaintop-removal, while outlining the administration’s missed opportunities to protect communities or rein in state environmental agencies that routinely fail to enforce the law:
“This report comes on the heels of accusations from local groups that a Kentucky mining company has violated the Clean Water Act nearly 28,000 times, likely the largest non-compliance of the law in its 42-year history, while state regulators continue to give only slaps on the wrists.”
For the rest of this column, click here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-anne-hitt/report-outlines-ways-to-p_b_6288922.html