Copyright 1999 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
The Houston Chronicle
November 14, 1999, Sunday 2 STAR EDITION
SECTION: A; Pg. 12
LENGTH:
819 words
HEADLINE: Mountaintop removal fight goes from
courts to halls of Congress;
Issue becomes jobs vs. environmental waste
SOURCE: Staff
BYLINE: ANDREW
BROMAN, Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
DATELINE:
WASHINGTON
BODY:
WASHINGTON - Environmentalists
scored a major victory last month when a federal judge found that West Virginia
coal companies were violating federal law by filling streams with mine
waste.
That victory may be short-lived if some members of
Congress get their way.
Lawmakers from West Virginia and Idaho have
threatened to hold up final approval of the federal budget unless it includes a
provision to continue allowing mountaintop removal, a practice blamed for
polluting streams and damaging wildlife habitat.
The group, headed by
Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, says that if the court's ruling is
not reversed, thousands of mine workers could lose their jobs. "The court ruling
is wrong-headed. It jeopardizes your jobs. It jeopardizes your hometowns. Your
futures have been put on the line," Byrd told mine workers last week at a rally
on the Capitol steps.
What is at issue is the disposal of valley fill -
rock, soil and trees blasted off mountaintops to expose deposits of coal for
miners to extract. Industry advocates say West Virginia's landscape is so
mountainous that mine operators have no choice but to dump the rubble into
stream-laced valleys and hollows.
Environmentalists say operators need
to find new ways to get rid of the waste, such as filling abandoned underground
shafts. Mountaintop removal, they say, causes too much damage.
The
dispute illustrates the tension between concerns for the environment and the
need for jobs, a fight in which state and federal regulators so far have sided
with miners.
The industry argues that it only wants to continue a
practice permitted for years by the West Virginia Department of Environmental
Protection, the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers. All
three agencies must grant various permits for mine operators to fill streams
with mine rubble.
In general, regulators have relaxed standards as
mountaintop removal has become a more common method of strip-mining, said
Stephen Brown, a history professor at the West Virginia University Institute of
Technology. "When these laws were enacted, the current . . . techniques used to
mine (coal) hadn't been envisioned."
Since Congress toughened
anti-pollution laws 22 years ago, the number of miles of West Virginia streams
mine operators have been allowed to fill each year has tripled. An analysis of
state records by the The Sunday Gazette-Mail, a Charleston paper, found permits
to fill 71 miles of streams in 1997, up from 20 miles in 1977.
Shortly
after environmentalists filed the lawsuit in 1998 seeking to ban mountaintop
removal, the EPA and Corps of Engineers tightened their restrictions but
continued issuing permits to mine operators.
What Byrd and Sen. Larry
Craig, R-Idaho, along with House members from West Virginia, want is to void a
ruling by U.S. District Judge Charles Haden so that regulators can once again
sign off on valley fills.
When Haden last month ordered the industry to
comply with the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act and the Clean Water
Act, Byrd and others began painting doomsday scenarios for West Virginia's
economy. Haden then put his order on hold until the case is heard in an appeals
court.
"An entire economy is at risk here," said Chris Hamilton, vice
president of the West Virginia Coal Association. "We're talking about the loss
of 50,000 jobs. From that economic picture you can see what devastation (this
ruling) might have."
Environmentalist say predictions like Hamilton's
are exaggerating the impact mining has on the state's economy, which ranks as
one of the poorest in the nation.
They worry the industry scare tactics
will give Byrd the momentum he needs to move his proposal through Congress and
onto President Clinton's desk.
The Clinton administration, which
initially supported Byrd's proposal, backed away two weeks ago after Haden
granted a stay on his order. The White House now opposes the senator's effort to
overturn the ruling by tacking a rider onto a spending bill.
"There's a
number of anti-environmental riders that remain (unresolved). We have made it
very clear that they're unacceptable," said presidential spokesman Joe Lockhart.
Byrd's "suggestion of finding a way to legislate what the court is doing
now is something that we don't support," Lockhart said Friday.
But Byrd,
the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, is a Clinton ally who
defended him during the impeachment trial early this year. This is the sort of
alliance the industry hopes will pay off.
If Byrd gets his way,
environmentalists say Clinton and the West Virginia delegation will send the
wrong message to industry across the country.
"If this rider were to
make it through, our congressional delegation would be viewed as writing the
book on how to circumvent environmental legislation," said Rick Eades, a
hydrogeologist for Citizens Action Group of West Virginia.
GRAPHIC: Photo: Mountaintop removal like this
near Clothier, W.Va., is at the center of a dispute between Congress and
environmentalists. Companies say it is one of the most efficient mining methods,
but environmentalists say the practice pollutes streams and violates federal
law.; Associated Press
LOAD-DATE: November 15, 1999
