Coming soon: New EPA report on mountaintop removal
Photo by Vivian Stockman
Look for the U.S. EPA to issue a new draft scientific report on mountaintop removal’s environmental impacts sometime in early November.
That’s the word from Michael Slimak, associated director of ecology at EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment. The report is being prepared by Slimak’s center, which is part of EPA’s Office of Research and Development.
News that EPA was preparing this study came out last week when agency officials published a notice seeking nominations for a Science Advisory Board ad hoc panel to provide peer review of the report.
Slimak told me yesterday that his center’s report is due by Nov. 1, but could be delayed for a week or two. He expects a draft to be made public by Nov. 15. The ad hoc review panel would then meet, hopefully sometime in January, and a final EPA document would be released perhaps in the spring.
The report is a review of existing peer-reviewed and published scientific research and data about the impacts of mountaintop removal on water quality and related issues. Interestingly, Slimak told me that some of the coal industry research on these issues is not going to be examined as part of the EPA effort, because most of it has not been published in peer-reviewed journals, which are essentially the “gold standard” for scientists.
10 comments
They are not going to use data that does not give them the answers they are looking for . . . . that is all he is saying here
Nope, I believe he’s saying they’re not going to use “some” data that has not met a normal, standard criterion for acceptance by the scientific community: publication in a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. If the coal industry has a study that has met that criterion, I have no doubt EPA would be willing to include it.
EM2 …
First, do you work for a coal company?
Second, I think the important question here is: If the coal industry has such great scientists and data, why don’t they submit some of it to the gold standard of peer review?
Ken.
Ken, perhaps the coal industry has submitted data and it didn’t pass the peer review? Does the research have to pass before it is published?
The coal industry should just put or shut up and produce some peer-reviewed science if they want to be included in the study. If they indeed have some bona-fide scientific articles that suggest surface mining does not contribute to the degradation of stream water quality I would love to see it. There should be a plethora of information in restoration ecology or other journals that support the mining industry’s efforts to minimize and/or repair damage caused by their activities. If so the EPA would be well advised to include it and not only study it but demand the industry to follow its own lead and use the best available restoration or treatment technology. Its called Adaptive Management and if the industry can’t adapt then why should they be allowed to continue to operate?
This reminds me of the “intelligent design” debate where creationists insist ID is valid but have virtually no scientific evidence to support their case. They lost in court and if the coal industry goes down the same road they may realize a similar fate.
Just because you have a PhD doesn’t mean you’re automatically a great scientist. Scientists can be influenced by money just as much as any other profession. Which is why there’s peer review. Anybody can find some scientist to back up any idea they have, and anybody can start an online journal with a fancy-sounding name to publish their “findings”, but unless it’s been vetted by the scientific community, it’s usually meaningless. So when the coal industry says they have science to back them up, I’m going to be pretty skeptical until I see some peer review.
The few industry papers I have seen thus far were not peer reviewed. One was a write up of a presentation at an symposium; the other was a very horribly written master’s thesis that should have been rejected by the student’s thesis committee just based on the grammatical and spelling errors (it was also mathmatically and scientifically flawed).
Ken et al, when the EPA holds the purse strings for academic research through grant assistance and fellowships, it skews the resultant availability of acceptable “peer review”. No academic “scientist” or university administration worth its salt is going to bite the hand that feeds the doctoral research machine regardless of the promise of a one time private industry contract.
Further, by coercive control of the academic community in this manner the government assures that any dissenting voice is drowned out long before it reaches the public ear. Case in point is the scientists (hundreds if not thousands at this time) who have signed on to petitions saying they doubt the validity of the conclusions about global warming / climate change coming out of the Obama administration. At least since the “debate was settled” on that issue.
Carl. Please.
The conclusions you are talking about came out of the BUSH administration. A more accurate way to say it might be that the relevant scientific conclusions on climate change you cite were reached and published under the previous administration.
Indeed, government funding may be subject to political pressures. Seven years ago, there was a huge forest fire in a roadless area in the Siskiyou National Forest in Oregon. The Bush Administration pushed to log the area; an Oregon Republican even introduced legislation to make it easier to approve clear cuts in burned areas. He based his bill on a study from Oregon State University that claimed logging helped forest regeneration. It was not peer-reviewed. A separate study from the same dept at Oregon State was published in Science, a peer-reviewed journal of some prestige. That study showed the opposite–logging after fires retards forest recovery and reduces biodiversity. Shortly after the latter study came out, the BLM withdrew $300,000 worth of funding the forestry program. (I believe the funding was eventually restored after lots of bad press.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/26/AR2006022601287.html
I agree the industry has failed to provide peer reviewed studies, and without those, who can take them seriously. I also believe publication of such a study would generate increased sales for that issue, in light of the controversy. It is naive to think a journal would not jump at that chance to find a larger audience. And as far a coercive control, I believe the campaign contributions of the coal industry outweigh the influence of academia, hands down. If the coal industry was that worried about fellowships, maybe instead of buying a Supreme Court Justice, they could underwrite academic study of this issue!
Leave a Comment