Army Corps of Engineers Suspends Nationwide Permit for Mountaintop Removal Mining

[Ed Barrow]

Source: Environmental News Service

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today suspended the use of a fast-track nationwide permit, Nationwide Permit 21, for mountaintop removal mining operations in the six states of the Appalachian region.

Now, proposed surface coal mining projects that involve discharges of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States will have to go through the individual permit process to obtain Department of the Army authorization under the Clean Water Act.

The individual permit evaluation procedure provides increased public involvement in the permit evaluation process, including an opportunity for public comment on individual projects.

...

The suspension is effective immediately in the Appalachian region of Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Nationwide Permit 21 continues to be available in other regions of the country.

Read more: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2010/2010-06-17-092.html

[burnsei sensei]

1. Smart move.

I've been waiting for our government to stop playing poker in Appalachia and start playing chess with the objective of securing the future for the people who live there.

[arcane1]

2. A toast to common sense!!

[wryter2000]

3. K&R

Good news. :hi:

[FLPanhandle]

4. Why are any of these permitted?

This slows down the process, which is nice. This needs to stop.

[jody]

5. Will people someday recognize that "Mountaintop Removal Mining" is just another disastrous

corporate scheme to rape and pillage the inheritance of We the People leaving us to pay in uncountable ways for the permanent damage they do to our environment as is happening in real time in the Gulf of Mexico?

Short-term profits for a few international corporations and permanent damage to our environment that destroys the present and future health of our descendants and the economy.

[Champion Jack]

6. Great news!

[tbyg52]

7. Thank you - I really needed some good news. nt

[proReality]

8. YES!

Let's hope they continue to do a few more smart things about mining and its consequences.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. A great first step...onward to banning this horrid process.

I can't get too excited, although this will slow the rape down, it will not stop it. The individual permit procedure with "public involvement" is a sham. They have to sit and listen to you, being quite bored, then they just give out the permit. Hmmmm, kind of like what happens with these three-ring circuses we call Congressional hearings.

[glitch]

12. It's a start. And hydrofracking should be next.

Every extraction process that doesn't leave the environment as they found it should be outlawed.

[Curmudgeoness]

13. Absolutely, fracking is a huge concern too.

PA, where I live, is leading the nation in stupidity on this one. Don't fracking drill!

[glitch]

14. I have relatives in the WV panhandle, beautiful area.

Now being spoiled. They can't drink the water and bathing isn't recommended. They buy bottled water in Moundsville, 20 miles away.

[Kolesar]

18. flames come out of their faucets

...if they light them. There is a movie coming out about fracking. I heard a segment on public radio about it. I think it was Marketplace.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

32. I don't know if this is the one that you heard about.

http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/

The poster above who commented on the PA being decimated by fracking had it right.

If you haven't seen it yet, please check out the link in my signature line for some truly disgusting facts and pictures. It is probably one of the best sites for information on what this ****ing fracking is doing to one area of PA in particular. The worst part is that new wells are multiplying like cockroaches in this state.

Here are a few other good ones also.

http://gasdrillingawarenesscoalition.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/contributions-from-drilling-companies-to-campaigns/

http://www.earthworksaction.org/SplitEstate.cfm

http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090929/fracking-accidents-prompt-calls-oversight

http://frackmountain.wordpress.com/beta/

I've been told by a few people that this is all BS and that fracking is completely safe. However, these people were making money on the drilling so there would appear to be a conflict of interest.

If you get HBO, Gasland premiers this Monday.

[XemaSab]

10. Excellent

:D

[awoke_in_2003]

11. this is good...

now we need to take the necessary steps to get rid of the need for coal as quick as possible.

[LWolf]

15. Good. nt

[bread_and_roses]

16. Didn't they just grant a vociferously oposed permit a few months ago?

The assaults are so constant I can't always keep up with them, maybe I'm wrong, misremembering - I'd like to be. If I am not, and there is no political will to do the right thing - stop this entirely - it's hard for me to get too excited - no fast track might be good, if it turned out to mean anything other than a slower road to hell, and without some change, I don't find that too likely.

[quaker bill]

21. Vocal opposition does not count.

Under these laws, the extent and loudness of opposition has little effect on permit issuance. These decisions are not made by a poll of the public sentiment. Under the 4th ammendment, people have the right to property and the use of it. A case must be made that the general public interest over rides this right. A point of frequent confusion is that the "public interest" under these laws is not defined as "what the public is interested in".

The "public interest" is sharply defined by law and precedent, and it shifts from time to time depending on the composition of the SCOTUS and which cases have made it to their bench.

The bottom line is that when it comes to the administrative process of permit issuance, an individual with a well constructed legal argument, stated clearly and concisely, means 1000 times more than all the petitions one could gather. It is a legal issue, not a popularity contest.

Where petitions and activism become useful is in electing legislators and executives who will pass and implement stronger laws, and then keeping up the pressure until they actually do it. If you want regulators to be tough, you need to pass laws with teeth, and then you need a President who will issue "regulatory guidance memos" that direct folks to implement them.

If you are at all amused, the federal register can occasionally make fascinating reading.

[alfredo]

17. Congrats to Kentuckians For The Commonwealth and all

the state groups that have fought the good fight. The fight isn't over , it just means a longer approval process. That gives time for a comprehensive environmental impact study, and for the opposition to publicize and organize.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. About time! nt

[quaker bill]

20. This is good news

I am an environmental regulator professionally. What the suspension of the "Nationwide 21" does is to remove a presumption in the law that these mountaintop removal permits pose no significant environmental impact. Under the Clean Water Act the "nationwide permits" are very similar in scope and intent to the "categorical exclusion" you have been reading about under the National Environmental Policy Act.

In a practical sense this change now allows a wide swath of questions to be asked to any permit applicant. Options that can be considered will now include the "no build" option for projects deemed to have significant adverse environmental impacts. There are a number of tools you cannot use as a regulator under "nationwide permits". Simple questions like "Why not just dig for coal somewhere else?" are now in play.

The other good thing about Individual Section 404 permits is that there is no mandatory timeframe for issuance. This means that the review of an application can, and often does, go on for years.

[SpartanDem]

38. Thanks for explanation

[kestrel91316]

22. Excellent. Now explain to me again how Obama is a loser and a do-nothing

traitor.....

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kestrel91316]

30. Calling him Barry is a hallmark of the RW birther and racist faction.

I've never seen a Democrat call him that. Care to explain yourself?

And you are as much as calling him a loser. Actually you're calling him worse.

I guess you and your buddies are still sore that McPain and Bible Spice lost.

[ProudDad]

33. It's what he called himself in his earlier sycophantic days... (n/t)

[ProudDad]

34. I never said he was a loser...

He's an outstanding mouthpiece for his Korporate Kapitalist masters and he's doing a fine job of it.

He's a WINNER!

He's obviously succeeding in pulling the wool over your eyes... :shrug:

[Petrushka]

23. K & R

:kick:

[ProudDad]

24. Good start... (n/t)

[kestrel91316]

31. Why would you say that when you clearly hate the man and want him

out of office?

Your inconsistency makes people wonder about your true intentions on this board.

[ProudDad]

37. Your lack of comprehension makes people wonder if you even bother to read the posts.

I do NOT "hate" Barrack Obama.

I don't "hate" anyone, really.

I don't even "hate" you...

After 8 years of bush the lesser, and as one who values the English language, I find it somewhat refreshing to hear another pResident who can actually form a complete sentence...(even though the last one who could speak coherently sold the working class down the river)

His kids aren't drunks...that's kind of cool.

I consider Obama to be a very smooth, clever mouthpiece for the capitalist industrial growth system (you know, the mind set and "economic" system that's rendering the Earth uninhabitable for large air-breathing mammals and making most people miserable along the way)

I'm not even really surprised nor greatly disappointed. I didn't expect "change" from him. I knew of his background of constant appeasement of powerful interests, his own particular brand of triangulation, and did not expect ANYTHING SUBSTANTIVE from this new incarnation of the two-right-wings of the Big Business Party (or as Louis Black so wonderfully put it, "The two parties ... like a bowl of shit looking at itself in the mirror!")

These little crumbs like those in the OP are refreshing (after 8 years of near nothing).

But unfortunately the little crumbs are greatly overshadowed by Obama's actions, rhetoric and obeisance to the death culture with its permanent war economy and national security police state. The Death Culture and the Permanent War go on and on and on...supported by the bulk of the USAmerican budget.

He's out-bushed bush in that regard; and yes, I AM a little disappointed at that.

I'd hoped for FDR like unintended consequences but instead we got a war-like-Hoover Administration.

[clarence swinney]

26. BALD

is beautiful



see

olduglymean bald

[earcandle]

27. Great!

[clarence swinney]

28. if my age you cant recall

Smokey Mountains

Loggers scalped them.

Teddy said take away those barber scissors

today what a great beauty-- past ten years many visits and each a great great thrill.

[SaveAmerica]

29. Celebrating - for all the times we've driven through TN mtns and mourned

How can anyone ever have thought this is a good method?

[Uncle Joe]

35. Apparently a judge ruled this insane policy was illegal in March of 09, I'm happy to

see this has finally been suspended.

The suspension in Appalachia will remain in effect until the Corps takes further action on Nationwide Permit 21, or until the permit expires on March 18, 2012.

This announcement comes more than a year after a March 2009 U.S. District Court decision ruled these permits illegal.

Those kind of open permits remind me of the carte blanche approach of permitting oil drilling in the Gulf without regard to environmental impact.

Thanks for the thread, Ed Barrow.

[sabrina 1]

36. That is wonderful news. It also mean, I hope,

that Massey Energy will not be able to go forward with their next mountain-top removal project and maybe now, the Wind Farm project on top of that mountain will be considered.

Maybe some good can come of the awful tragedies that have occurred over the past few months in the Coal Mines and in the Gulf. The deaths of the 29 miners and 11 oil rig workers should not be in vain.

[Brother Buzz]

39. Maybe this wonderful news will bring Rand Paul out of his self-imposed hiding

Perhaps the MSM can slip him a written question in exchange for a golden 'sound bite' from the wacky sage.

[Hubert Flottz]

40. OH MY GOD JOBS!

[truedelphi]

41. Thank you, Ashley Judd! Without you and the dozens if not hundreds of activists

On this issue, no one out there would be forced to listen.

Glad your mission is somewhat accomplished.

[me b zola]

42. Excellent news

I know that stimulus funds are limited, but it would be fantastic if there were restoration jobs available to regional people in coal mining town.

In any event, :thumbsup:

[theHandpuppet]

43. About damn time, too!

Score 1 for the people of Appalachia!

:thumbsup: