Tomorrow is the deadline for public comments to be submitted to the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement for the agency’s advance notice of proposed rulemaking on the stream “buffer zone” rule.
Coal industry lobbyists and environmental groups are both encouraging their supporters to contact OSMRE, with quite different messages.
Just before Christmas, Friends of Coal sent out an “urgent” alert warning its members that, “The federal government is ready to advance another of its attacks on coal mining in West Virginia and across the country.” The group falsely told its members that OSMRE “has published an Advance Notice of Rulemaking that would restrict the ability to underground or surface mine anywhere in the nation.”
Of course, OSMRE has not proposed anything at this point. As I discussed previously, the agency listed a variety of options for how it might rewrite the buffer zone rule. Some are more stringent than others. But OSMRE has not expressed a preference, and no changes in the current way the buffer zone is enforced appear to be coming anytime soon, given OSMRE’s recent backing of the way the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection is enforcing its buffer zone rule. And OSMRE isn’t even planning a proposed rule be published in the Federal Register until early in 2011.
But that doesn’t stop the coal industry from stoking fear among workers:
Contact OSM and tell them to leave the Buffer Zone Rule alone. The current version of the regulation protects mining jobs, coal communities, and our coal tax-dependent state and local governments. Tell them about your family, your community and how your job depends on coal mining. Let them know that outlawing coal mining will have a real impact on your life. Tell them you deserve the right to live, work and raise a family in West Virginia. Let them know that without coal mining, your way of life will disappear.
Meanwhile, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and other citizen groups are telling their supporters to urge OSMRE to move more quickly to do something to overturn the Bush administration’s decision to eliminate the buffer zone rule:
It is imperative that these changes are made immediately. If we wait until 2011 to begin reversing this rule, many more miles of Appalachian streams will be forever buried; these are the drinking water supplies of many eastern cities.
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[...] Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette – » Both sides pressuring OSMRE on buffer zone rule blogs.wvgazette.com – view page – cached Tomorrow is the deadline for public comments to be submitted to the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement for the agency’s advance notice of proposed rulemaking on the stream “buffer zone” rule. [...]
Thank you Mr. Ward for pointing out the truth. WV coalfield communities have remained in the dark ages because of fear mongering and lies far too long now. It is time for WV Government to stop propping up a declining industry. Another telling truth is that if the coal industry must mine within one hundred feet of a stream coal resources must be drying up. Exterminating our mountains and poisoning our streams is either an act of desperation or a display of unparalleled greed.
I thought a prominent West Virginia Coal Association representative said that he couldnt understand what Sen. Byrd was talking about when Sen. Byrd criticized the coal industry for “scapegoating and stoking fear.”
FACES of Coal: “Let them know that outlawing coal mining will have a real impact on your life. Tell them you deserve the right to live, work and raise a family in West Virginia. Let them know that without coal mining, your way of life will disappear. ”
In Lexington, FACES of Coal is being run by a public relations man named Phil Osborne. He used to be with the firm Preston-Osborne. Ken it would be great if you could get an interview with Mr Osborne and ask him just how he concludes that the federal government is trying to outlaw coal mining ….