Date: March 19, 2010
Source: News Room
Environmental groups want EPA to move quickly with planned rulemaking that would reverse a controversial Bush administration regulation that allowed waste from mountaintop mining and other activities to be considered "fill material," allowing its disposal without strict EPA discharge permits. Behind the effort is the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) which sent a Mar. 15 email to constituents pressing for immediate action. At issue is a 2002 Bush rule that expanded the regulatory definition of what constitutes "fill," which is exempted from the Clean Water Act's definition of "pollutants" subject to regulation under EPA's section 402 discharge permit requirements. Instead, the waste disposal is regulated under less strict permits issued by the Army Corps of Engineers under section 404 of the water act. The issue reached the Supreme Court which ruled in "Coeur Alaska v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council" that gave EPA discretion to categorize mining tailings and other pollutants as "fill material" exempt from strict discharge limits.
Since the court's ruling, environmentalists worry that a regulatory fix is needed to prevent other industries including power plants, chemical and cement manufacturers, solid waste landfills, and others from disposing of their wastes under similarly lenient conditions.
From the NRDC Website:
Instead of extracting coal from underground, mountaintop removal mining blasts away mountain peaks to access the coal underneath. The waste is dumped into adjoining valleys and often into streams, wiping out forests and the wildlife that depend on them. Greedy mining companies have flattened nearly 500 Appalachian mountains across hundreds of thousands of acres, destroying or polluting more than 1,200 miles of streams and rivers in the process.
Mining companies have been able to do this dirty work thanks to the Bush administration's weakening of Clean Water Act regulations, making it easier for mining waste to be dumped directly into Appalachian headwater streams, often burying them altogether. Now the House of Representatives is considering legislation that would strengthen the Clean Water Act by restricting that practice -- thereby curtailing mountaintop removal mining.
What to do:
Send a message urging your representative to support and cosponsor the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 1310) to help end mountaintop removal mining and protect the beautiful Appalachian Mountains.
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