EPA: Agency ‘confident’ of mountaintop removal effects
Photo by Vivian Stockman
In response to some questions I had about U.S. EPA’s announced plan for a new scientific review of mountaintop removal’s environmental impacts, agency spokeswoman Enesta Jones issued a brief statement this afternoon:
EPA is confident in the body of science that demonstrates adverse effects downstream of mountaintop mining and associated valley fills, particularly as they relate to conductivity and overall water quality.
By asking the Science Advisory Board to review the body of science related to downstream effects, EPA will subject this science to the review of experts outside the agency specifically empaneled for this review. In that way, not only will the review be independent of EPA, the process and the results are open to the public.
EPA expects to complete the review by mid-2010.
3 comments
I am confident that they should shut down ALL industry that pollutes , lets just all go back to living on the land and going to bed when it gets dark. The Hampton Roads Sanitation District is dumping raw sewage in the Chesapeake Bay, but they havent been scrutinized like the mining industry. I wonder why?
teresa,that’s not a good response,this is about coal and how it releases the most ghg,co2.if they shut down all industry that pollutes,there wouldn’t be a job left.while i’ll admit the this state hasn’t really done it’s job when it comes to mining,there are others that do the same enviromental damage,that does not get the press that coal mines do.one-sided eviromentalists is what i refer to it as.
The Hampton Roads Sanitation District should be scrutinized as well. But this is about one of the most egregious environmental and human rights violations occurring in the US today. Saying that we shouldn’t try to stop environmental destruction because there’s other pollution elsewhere is like saying we shouldn’t feed the hungry in West Virginia because there’s also hungry people in Massachusetts.
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