Copyright 1999 P.G. Publishing Co.
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
October 23, 1999, Saturday, 32REGION 24
EDITION
SECTION: NATIONAL, Pg. A-6
LENGTH: 530 words
HEADLINE:
WEST VIRGINIA'S COAL INDUSTRY IS ALARMED BY CLEAN-WATER RULING WEST VIRGINIA;
SHAKEN BY STRIP MINE RULING THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BYLINE: MARTHA BRYSON HODEL
BODY:
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - West Virginia's
coal mining industry warned that it was headed for ruin and the governor ordered
a state hiring and spending freeze yesterday after a federal judge barred the
dumping of strip mine waste in streams.
"The impact of
this ruling will be devastating to state and local budgets," Gov. Cecil
Underwood said. In a victory for environmentalists who sued the coal industry
last year, U.S. District Judge Charles Haden II ruled Wednesday that dumping
mining waste in West Virginia's streams fouled the water in violation of the
federal Clean Water Act.
The law bans mining operations within 100 feet
of a stream. The ruling could all but shut down mountaintop removal mining, a
strip mining technique used increasingly in Appalachia. The top of a ridge is
sheared off, the coal is extracted, and the leftover rock and dirt are pushed
into a nearby river valley.
Coal industry leaders warned that the ruling
could also cripple traditional underground mining, which also disposes of waste
in river valleys.
"They gave us a death sentence, is what they've done,"
said Ernest Woods, president of United Mine Workers Local 5958. "We're dinosaurs
now. And they'll be going after the deep mines next."
West Virginia is
the No. 2 coal-producing state, behind Wyoming. The coal industry accounts for 3
percent of all jobs in West Virginia, down from 9.5 percent in 1979.
The
nearly 19,000 jobs tied to the industry provided more than $ 950 million in
wages in 1998, with workers averaging $ 50,800 a year.
The state had 392
underground mines and 227 strip mines last year, with strip mining accounting
for less than one-third of West Virginia's total production of 181 million tons
of coal.
State regulators said they did not yet know exactly how many
mines are affected by the ruling.
But the state Tax Department said it
could cost West Virginia as much as $ 100 million this fiscal year, out of an
annual budget of $ 2.6 billion.
As a result, the governor told state
agencies to prepare for a 10 percent budget cut in January, and put a freeze on
hiring and spending.
The director of the U.S. Office of Surface Mining,
Kathy Karpan, said the ruling could also affect mining operations nationwide.
"It could virtually stop all coal mining - not just strip mining but underground
mining as well," Karpan said.
West Virginia's congressional delegation
has asked federal regulatory agencies to join in an appeal of the ruling.
Mountaintop-removal strip mining is growing in West Virginia, in part
because that is where the untouched deposits lie and because coal companies that
practice such mining are often freed from the requirement that they restore the
land to its approximate original contour.
They simply fill in the nearby
stream, leaving terrain that is flat or gently rolling.
Not everyone was
upset with the ruling. Cindy Rank, a spokeswoman for the West Virginia Highlands
Conservancy, one of the environmental groups that sued, was ecstatic.
"We've always believed that the law was meant to protect all our
resources, including streams and people, much more than has been done in the
past 10 years," Rank said.
LOAD-DATE: December 16, 1999
