Mountain Holler
EPA Puts a Hold On MTR Permits!!!
March 24th, 2009
Correction: The EPA did not really put a hold on permits. The EPA's statement was misinterpreted by everyone from the environmentalists to lawyers to the coal industry and the media. What the EPA did say was that they will review valley fill permits before they are approved.After the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Chambers' 2007 ban on new valley fill permits, the EPA announced they were putting the valley fill permits that were being held up by that case on hold. This is huge news for us and especially for the chances of getting a wind farm on Coal River Mountain.
Please call the Whitehouse Comment Line at (202) 456-1111 and tell them thank you for putting them on hold, now let's make the hold permanent!
From the AP:
EPA halts hundreds of mountaintop mining permits
By DINA CAPPIELLO -- WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency is putting on hold hundreds of mountaintop coal-mining permits until it can evaluate the projects' impacts on streams and wetlands.
The decision was announced Tuesday by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson. It targets a controversial practice by coal mining companies that dump waste from mountaintop mining into streams and wetlands.
It could delay more than a hundred permits being sought by companies wanting to begin blasting mountaintops to access coal.