Bushwhacking the environment

The Bush administration continues to play Calvinball with the environment. First, some background.

Charleston, W.Va. (New York Times, January 26) - The Bush administration is moving to revamp a rule protecting streams that Appalachian environmentalists view as their best weapon for fighting the strip-mining technique of mountaintop removal.

The rule, first set down in 1977, says "no land within 100 feet of an intermittent or perennial stream shall be disturbed by surface coal mining and reclamation operations" without specific authorization. In effect, it established a 100 foot buffer zone along streams to protect them from the ravages of strip mining.

Strip mining involves dynamiting away mountaintops to expose seams of low-sulfur coal, then dumping the leftover rubble into nearby valleys and streams. Some of those valley fills, as they are known, are hundreds of feet deep and several miles long, making them among the largest man-made earthen structures in the East.

Coal companies have been able to get away with creating these valley fills because the regulation was at best loosely enforced. But in 1998, a suit filed in federal court that resulted in a strongly worded decision upholding it.

"Valley fills are waste disposal projects so enormous that, rather than the stream assimilating the waste, the waste assimilates the stream," [Chief district Judge Charles H.] Haden wrote.

That decision was overturned at the Appellate level on jurisdictional grounds, but a new suit has been filed at the state level.

Belching their usual doom and gloom, industry representatives and legal hacks claim that actually enforcing the rule would be a "death sentence" for the mining industry across the entire region. Environmental groups agree that there would be an impact but call industry claims hyperbole and say there are alternatives to dumping mine waste into streams - if the industry was willing to pay for them.

Which brings us to the Bushites' response. In place of a rule that protects streams, a new rule

by the Office of Surface Mining would make clear that filling valleys and covering streams is permitted under federal law if companies show they are minimizing mining waste and the environmental damage caused by it.

And to who would that have to make such a showing? Why, to the very people who are going out of their way to make things easier on the mining industry.

"New rule! Safety zone! Can't touch me here!"

"But you just touched me!"

"That's part of the rule!"

"NO FAIR! New rule...!"

"You can't make a new rule now."

"Huh? Why not?

"You can't make a new rule within one minute of an old rule."

"When did that become a rule?"

"Just before you tried to make a new rule."

"HEY!"

Footnote: If it's causing legal headaches and there are alternatives, why does the mining industry rely more and more on mountaintop removal?

[M]ountaintop mining has emerged as the most common form of surface mining in central Appalachia. The process produces more coal, requires fewer employees and is less costly than other forms of mining.

Follow the money.