The Obama administration’s EPA announced a crackdown on mountaintop removal (MTR) mines back in March, and yet the approvals keep coming for new mines. No public announcements are made, and no documents released, but big coal gets to keep tearing off the tops of mountains, extracting the coal, then filling valleys with the waste.
What the hell happened to focusing on conservation and renewables? What about the EPA saying they are “back on the job” for the American people?
The EPA gave the go ahead to the Army Corp of Engineers to give a Clean Water Act permit to CONSOL Energy for the Peg Fork Surface Mine in Mingo County, WV. The administration approved all eight valley fill waste piles proposed by the company, with the provision that additional water testing is done before six of those fills are constructed.
Despite promises of transparency from the administration in the review process, the public had no access to the permit documents. Conservationists and environmentalists continue to be appalled by the business-as-usual attitude from the EPA.
“We are disappointed that the administration has approved a new mountaintop removal mine without making any commitment to adopt new regulations or policies that would end this destructive practice. While we appreciate that the Obama administration is taking a harder look at mountaintop removal coal mining, unless that results in decisions that end the irreversible destruction of streams, the harder look isn’t going to do the job.” - Ed Hopkins, director of Sierra Club environmental quality program
And with the overruling of the proposed changes to mining regulations (which would have overturned the Bush administration’s gutting of water quality protections) by a federal judge, what this says to me is “Go ahead and rape the mountains and pollute the streams. We want cheap energy, and we don’t care about the water or the air or the land, because we don’t live there, and we don’t have to look at it.”
Take a gander at the video up to the right and tell me if you think MTR makes any sense at all…
A little theme music for you: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss - I get on my knees and pray, we don’t get fooled again.
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I think I have a simple explanation for this increasingly insane appearing policy and practice… it even explains why a nice guy like Obama would be supporting it. Here’s my logic:
1. We’re running out of gas (oil).
2. We don’t have enough alternative and sustainable sources of energy in place.
3. When the flow stops we’ll be in a bit of trouble since our society is so reliant on oil.
4. All politicians seem to agree that economic stability is the number one priority.
5. Stability will evaporate when the oil rug is pulled out from under us.
6. You can extend the time the rug gets pulled out by finding every possible source of energy available including coal.
So in other words, Obama must be supporting MTR because it prolongs this peak oil plateau we’re on and in a very ironic sort of way protects us.
Unfortunately the public could choose another solution. If we all started valuing sustainability and self-reliance more than television and fast food we’d probably be able to fix the real problem, decades of putting profit before people and the planet.