A “One, Two Punch:” The Bush Administration Is Eliminating Two Federal Regulations that Protect Appalachian Waterways From Mountaintop Removal Waste

Mountaintop removal mining, in which coal companies blast the tops off of mountains and push millions of tons of waste into valleys, is polluting and obliterating streams all across Appalachia. Many people ask how this incredibly destructive practice can be legal. The easy answer is that it is not legal to destroy these streams.  But the reality of how the laws have been enforced–or not–is a little more complicated than you might think.

Over the last few years, the Bush administration has been trying to strike two important and long-standing environmental safeguards meant to protect waters of the United States from being buried by waste disposal practices of coal mining companies. Taken together, these two rule changes are a “one, two punch” that would leave Appalachian streams virtually unprotected by federal law. 

These two water protections are being repealed by the Bush administration because the coal industry wants no environmental interference with their unlimited destruction of streams, mountains, forests and communities in the coalfields of the eastern U.S.  Unfortunately, it seems that the coal industry’s wish is the Bush administration’s command.

Now, we need your help to fight back, and tell your members of Congress that weakening environmental protections and allowing mountaintop removal coal mining to destroy these waterways is totally unacceptable!

One: Turning waters into waste dumps

First, in May 2002, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers repealed a 25-year old Clean Water Act regulation that prohibits industries, like coal mining companies, from filling streams and other waters with “waste” materials – like the rocks and rubble from blown-up mountaintops destroyed by mountaintop removal mining.  The Corps adopted this waste disposal prohibition in 1977 under the Carter administration, consistent with the primary goal of the Clean Water Act: to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” 

The change: By changing the definition of “fill,” the Bush administration’s new rule says coal companies – and all other industries – can for the first time since 1977 just dump their wastes into pristine streams, lakes, and rivers. This is flatly inconsistent with the very purpose of the Clean Water Act, and is a blatant attempt to legalize the destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. 

• What you can do: Support the Clean Water Protection Act!

The Clean Water Protection Act would block this destructive rule change and expressly forbid the use of waste to fill the nation’s waters. This important legislation is needed to ensure our streams and waterways aren’t buried under millions of tons of mining and other industrial wastes.

• Take action to ask your representative to support the Clean Water Protection Act today!

Two: Ignoring protections for streams

In another blow to the protection of our nation’s waters, the Bush administration’s Office of Surface Mining (OSM) proposed on January 7, 2004, to get rid of the stream “buffer zone rule,” a regulation adopted by the Reagan administration in 1983. This rule stops coal mining activities like mountaintop removal that would adversely affect waters and disturb land within 100 feet of streams. The buffer zone rule was issued under the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which requires coal companies to minimize disturbances and adverse impacts of coal mining on water quality and wildlife.

The change: The Bush administration’s new rule would allow coal companies to ignore the stream buffer, and just dump their waste right on top of streams, as long as they try to “minimize” the harm they cause to the stream by burying it (whatever that means). The proposal misrepresents its true purpose and destructive consequences in a dishonest ploy that characterizes the new rule as “clarifying” existing law and “minimizing” environmental harm, when in fact the opposite is true.

• What you can do: Support Strong Protections for Our Streams!

We need to let the Bush administration know that weakening long-standing environmental protections and allowing coal companies to dump mountaintop removal waste directly into streams is totally unacceptable. You can help by calling on the Senate to take a stand on this issue. If enough senators hear from their constituents about the importance of protecting our vulnerable streams from mountaintop removal waste, they can tell the Army Corps to send this misguided rule straight to the trash.

• Take action to ask your senators to stand up for strong stream protections today!