Yesterday’s announcement that EPA was diving deep into the controversy over mountaintop removal coal mining is generating a huge amount of media attention. Of course, the best coverage of it in your Charleston Gazette and right here in Coal Tattoo.

But here’s a rundown of what else is being written and said …

There was a basic story in The New York Times Greenwire section, and a separate Times article described the EPA move as “a sharp reversal of Bush administration policies.

In its second-day story, The Associated Press (which previously said EPA was putting 150 to 200 permits on hold) is describing the EPA move this way:

Breaking with the policies of the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency is sharpening its oversight of mountaintop coal mining to ensure projects do not harm streams and wetlands.

In the coalfield newspapers, Jim Bruggers at the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote this:

The Obama administration has begun to put the brakes on the damaging practices of strip mining in the Appalachian Mountains, sharply criticizing proposed permits for two operations — one of them in Kentucky — and promising closer scrutiny of many more.

And in the Lexington Herald-Leader, Andy Mead wrote:

Using a proposed mine in Kentucky and one in West Virginia as examples, the federal Environmental Protection Agency signaled Tuesday that it is cracking down on mountaintop removal coal mining.

And Mead was wise to include some comments from Tom FitzGerald, lawyer with the Kentucky Resources Council, who has been following strip mining issues for many years:

Tom FitzGerald, executive director of the Kentucky Resources Council, said the EPA’s actions were a clear indication of a policy change.

For years, he said, the Corps has been approving mines that already had a federal mining permit that considered only whether the mine would be stable.

As far as enforcement of the Clean Water Act went, FitzGerald said, “no one was minding the shop.”

Relatively few permits have been granted since March 2007, when a federal judge overturned several, saying they needed more work. But last month, an appeals court overturned that ruling, giving the Corps the green light to approve permits without more extensive review.

Now the EPA is stepping forward and saying it will work with the Corps on reviewing permits.

The result won’t mean an end to mountaintop removal or other surface mining, FitzGerald said. But, he said, it could mean that mines will be designed to have the smallest possible footprint.

In areas that have been mined before, he said, mines ultimately could be designed with no valley fills.

“The days of just shearing the top of mountains and filling valleys are definitely over,” FitzGerald said.

What is needed now, FitzGerald said, is a new director of the federal Office of Surface Mining who “gets up every day and says ‘How can we do what Congress intended to do? How can we fully protect the rights of people downstream and downhill?’ ”

Here in Charleston, the Daily Mail’s Jake Stump unfortunately bit on Coal Association President Bill Raney’s absurd allegation that the EPA’s action was going to affect a variety of activities besides coal mining:

“You’re talking about road building, commercial development, and anything where you have to move any dirt at all,” he said. “You’re talking about dismantling West Virginia’s economy. I can’t believe the federal government would do that.”

The DM story was headlined, “Hold on permits crushing for W.Va.,” which would have been OK, if EPA had actually put a hold on permits.

In the Beckley Register-Herald, Rep. Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va., tried to set the record straight about what EPA has done:

“There are about 200 to 250 backlog permits that will be reviewed, but saying hundreds of permits have been put on hold is just not true,” he said.

Rahall says 50 of the backlog permits have already been sent to the EPA for review and resolution.

“There was concern regarding any adverse impacts to water quality over two new permits in West Virginia and Kentucky,” he said. “However, the EPA is working the Army Corps to resolve these issues.”

Rahall says the EPA is following the Clean Water Act.

“This is something that has not been done with the past administration over the past eight years,” he said. “The EPA doing permit-by-permit reviews is a normal process that the agency should have been doing all along.”

Reporter Fred Pace buried Rahall’s comments at the bottom of his story, and wrote in his first paragraph — erroneously –  that EPA had put hundreds of mountaintop removal permits on hold.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting did a nice story and had an interview with Joe Lovett of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment about what the EPA action means both in the short-term and over the long haul.

On the commentary front, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had an op-ed in The Washington Post:

 Yesterday was a great day for the people of Appalachia and for all of America.

Unfortunately, Kennedy also wrote incorrectly that EPA had suspended a mountaintop removal permit in West Virginia and that President Obama had issued a “moratorium” on new mining permits in Appalachia.

And author and commentator Jeff Biggers writes  for AlterNet:

Whether this is the beginning of a transition to abolish mountaintop removal is yet to be seen, but it is a huge step forward for our country.

In the blogosphere, Rob Perks from the NRDC’s Switchboard was among the few folks to get this story right. Well, at least once he rewrote and updated his commentary.

My friend Tim Wheeler, a West Virginia native who covers the environment for the Baltimore Sun, blogged about the EPA action as well. And he was kind enough to point his readers to Coal Tattoo.

And West Virginia Blue describes how “coal lackeys” are springing into action to attack EPA’s action “as reported by the morning fishwrap that competes with the Gazette” –

Raney, whose group openly admits it wants W.Va. to be more like China as far as regulations go, probably wrote this release months ago. No surprise there.

Same goes for Arch Moore’s daughter, Shelley.

Manchin is once again ready to play Lieberman and serve the industry as well.

They’re going to try to paint this view as the view of all West Virginians and those working under the coal operators.

Like Shelley, they’ll focus on the false premise that MTR equals jobs, when in fact the opposite is true. (Apparently, Shelley couldn’t take a break from photo ops with Dick Cheney to read up on traditional mining methods.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:58 am and is filed under Media coverage, Mountaintop Removal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.