While the EPA has rescinded the permit for one of the largest proposed mountain top mining sites, Spruce #1, I am troubled that 6 other mountain top mining sites have been approved in the last twelve months.
The NY Times reports that before blocking one of Appalachia's largest-ever mountaintop coal-mining projects this month, U.S. EPA agreed to allow blasting to start on a half-a-dozen other mountaintop mines.
Last July, for example, five months before EPA's landmark veto of Arch Coal Inc.'s permit for the 2,200-acre Spruce No. 1 mine in West Virginia, the agency greenlit plans from an Arch subsidiary, Coal-Mac Inc., to dynamite a third as many acres for the Pine Creek, W.Va., mine.
And last January, EPA signed off on plans from a former Arch subsidiary for another West Virginia mine, Hobet 45. Sited south of Charleston, the mine would have razed 602 acres and clogged 6 miles of streams. The mine owner, Patriot Coal Corp., reworked the plan to work in phases and reduce stream damage by half, which in turn appeased EPA.
Those two are among 79 mining applications that EPA set aside for "enhanced" review in 2009.
"The science is so overwhelming that the only conclusion that one can reach is that mountaintop mining needs to be stopped," the study's lead author, Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences, said when the study was released.
We need to focus on producing clean, renewable energy, not ruining mountains for hundreds of millions of years. We can't afford to poison our own people for our electricity, when clean alternatives are possible.
There will be no alternatives for the 79 mountains and innumerable lives destroyed by moving forward with the proposed mountain top mining.
No comments:
Post a Comment