USA Today’s circulation dropped 17 percent over the last six months. But 1.9 million people still take their paper. And those readers this morning were served an editorial that says it’s time “to tip the scales” the other way on mountaintop removal coal mining.
According to the editorial:
While blowing up mountaintops for surface mining is not illegal, two restrictions bar dumping the waste in or near surrounding waterways. But it took environmentalistlawsuits during the Clinton administration to push federal agencies to enforce the prohibitions, and regulatory changes during the coal-friendly Bush administration undercut the rules.
When Barack Obama took office, environmental groups pushed for a clampdown on mountaintop removal and were dismayed when officials approved dozens of new permits. Now, though, the administration has taken a step in the right direction. Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency froze 79 permits for further review after evaluation showed that the projects might harm the environment. The administration would do well to block the worst of them and change regulations to make the permitting process much stricter.
The paper notes:
The industry argues that the nation gets almost 50% of its electricity from coal and needs a steady supply. Mountaintop removal means jobs — about 26,500 people work directly in mining operations in the six affected states, and more than 50,000 other jobs are tied to those — in an impoverished region.
But, it says:
Studies suggest, however, that enforcing rules to minimize dumping waste into streams would add at most $1 or $2 per ton to the cost of coal (which recently sold for about $50 to $56 per ton) and cause comparatively little job loss. And while underground mining might be more dangerous, the answer is to make it safer, not to encourage environmental degradation.
As is USA Today’s practice, the paper included an “opposing view,” from Hal Quinn of the National Mining association:
Critics dwell on perceived environmental impacts, but even this partial picture is badly out of focus. Ignored is the stringent environmental analysis performed under dozens of federal and state laws before surface mines are approved and the frequent water quality monitoring afterwards. Ignored, too, is the post-mining restoration of these sites to provide for hospitals, schools, homes, recreation and other highly valued uses.
For the full picture, look at our entire nation that relies on coal to generate about half of its electricity. Coal is truly America’s power. We have more coal than any country, in part thanks to Appalachia.
Surface mining can be balanced with essential environmental protections, but only if we are willing to see the full picture.
But, USA Today editors concluded:
Producing fossil fuels such as oil and coal always involves balancing jobs, energy supplies and price against harm to nature. For too many years, the balance in Appalachia has tilted too far away from the environment, and the region will bear the scars for generations. It’s time to tip the scales the other way.
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The world should be as simple as that editorial.
Also, relying on supporting materials that are nearly six years old without mentioning it is not good journalism.
—
This is referenced studies:
January 6, 2004
http://www.earthjustice.org/library/signon/DEIS_MTR_1-6-04.pdf (21 pages)
Mr. John Forren
U.S. EPA (3EA30)
1650 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Delivered via U.S. Mail and Email ( mountaintop.r3 at epa.gov)
Dear Mr. Forren:
These comments are submitted by Earthjustice, the Natural Resources Defense Council, American Rivers, Friends of the Earth, National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation,
Sierra Club, Shagbark, Valley Watch, West Virginia Citizen Action, West Virginia Environmental Council, and West Virginia Rivers Coalition in response to the request for comment on the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (“DEIS”) on mountaintop removal coal mining and associated valley fills in Appalachia, published at 68 Fed. Reg. 32487 (May 30, 2003) by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), U.S. Office of Surface Mining (OSM) and West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (W.V. DEP) (hereinafter “the agencies”). We hereby incorporate by reference all documents citied in these comments.
there is no good journalism in Wv. Just KEN ward riding the coat tails of coal miners. Its a pitiful anyone would pay him to write this garbage in coal counrty. But if coal mines do actually do go under, he’ll be in the cheese line with all the rest of us. Ken won’t have anything else to cry about.
http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/coal/mtr_editorials.html
It’s a consensus across the nation–mountaintop removal coal mining is an atrocity and it must be stopped now.
“. . . the underlying question is why America allows this practice at all. . . .”
And that’s from the free-market “Economist”. (Thanks, Kate)
Mountiantop removal is wrong.
Tivis — Did you know there are more people in West Virginia who are unemployed than there are who work in coal mines?
WV coal mines have been “going under” for decades and our economy has not fallen apart. It could be better and we should all demand our tax dollars go to help create even more jobs that will be with us for the long term, but I think you’re exaggerating the role of coal in the mountain state economy.
Um… I think you meant “Time to ‘protect’ forest, streams” in the title, Ken? We’ve got enough to ‘protest’ in regard to the MTR companies without going after the poor forests and streams…
Kate,
Your site asks “where are the pro mountaintop removal editorials,” but you don’t appear to allow comments … in fact there have been pro-mountaintop removal editorials. I’ll post one example below from the Daily Mail, the afternoon paper here in Charleston … if readers have other links to EDITORIALS — not op-eds or columns — please post them. Ken.
OUR VIEWS MOUNTAINTOP MINING POLICY GETS A TUNEUP THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION BENEFITS BY LISTENING TO STATE ADMINISTRATIONS
Publication: CHARLESTON DAILY MAIL
Published: Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Page: 4A
Byline: NOT AVAILABLE
FOR the environmentalists who supported Barack Obama’s candidacy, there is no middle ground. They see mountaintop removal mining like that practiced in West Virginia as the “Appalachian Apocalypse,” and they want the president to ban it.
As columnist Charles Krauthammer noted recently, “Elections have consequences.”
The administration’s new crew at the Environmental Protection Agency said in March that it would review about 200 pending permits for mountaintop removal operations.
Agency officials’ announcement that they intended to review permits – the Bush EPA had let the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manage them – threw West Virginia local and state leaders for a loop.
What was the new administration’s policy on mountaintop removal mining?
Agency officials hastily clarified that they did not expect most permits to face a problem.
But businesses – and local and state governments – need predictability, and the pushback from coal country was intense. Gov. Joe Manchin and Rep. Joe Rahall took their concerns to the White House.
Manchin said he told White House officials that “we are looking for a balance between the environment and the economy, and they assured me they will work with us to find that balance.”
Governing well is a great deal more difficult than campaigning effectively. Campaigning is about simplistic sound bites. Governing means learning how complicated issues actually are, and modifying one’s actions accordingly.
The administration may be doing that. The Obama EPA has so far OK’d 42 of the 48 mine projects it has reviewed. That includes at least two dozen more mountaintop-removal coal mines.
Hard-line environmentalists are somewhere between disappointed and furious.
West Virginia officials, or course, care about the local effects of ill-considered policies, and they appear to be making a difference.
The Obama administration should continue to work with the local talent. They are well informed, and could save the new administration many missteps.
Nobody needs brownouts, job losses, or local government turmoil.
Ken,
Would the Charleston Daily Mail include the editorial board of the Economist among those “hardline environmentalists” for whom “there is no middle ground”?
Begs the question. what is really extreme? Radically altering the land for marginal amounts of coal or critizing such a practice?
Perhaps, as Casey noted, it takes an outsider to recognize what’s really going on:
“Men in the game are blind to what men looking on see clearly”.
[...] (on his increasingly popular, West Virginia focused blog ‘Coal Tattoo’) notes there is at least one he can refer to and that more exist. However I have to say that I think the papers listed below in this borrowed [...]