Mining interests want to spoil our streams

If terrorists tried to poison our water supply, our President would quickly seek revenge. If they started blowing up mountains and choking streams, he would find some excuse to invade another country and claim their mountains.
Unfortunately, terrorists are not destroying our mountains and rivers and streams. Coal companies are, and they have been very generous in sharing the spoils with politicians. Instead of inventing excuses to halt the destruction of the Cumberlands, Bush has accelerated their obliteration. After taking nearly $3 million in campaign donations from coal and electric interests during the 2000 election cycle, Bush appointed coal lobbyists to federal offices that oversee mining regulations. In 2002, these appointees changed the definition of “fill” so debris from surface mining could be dumped in streams without violating the Clean Water Act.
Last month, the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) issued a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) exempting such fill from a 1983 rule that restricted mining activity within 100 feet of streams. The buffer was never consistently enforced and is itself a compromise of a stricter 1979 law that required mine operators to restore any stream channel disturbed by their activity. In recent years, federal courts ruled against OSM and state agencies, demanding they enforce the buffer zone and do more to protect streams. Now the coal industry is fighting back through their paid-for appointees. According to OSM’s latest statement, dumping rock blown up to get at coal seams is not “mining activity.” It is easy to understand their logic: cleaning up plastic cups full of stale beer and cigarette butts the day after a kegger is not “partying.”
J. Steven Griles knows about both subjects. While Griles and his wife worked for the Department of the Interior, lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave $100,000 to a charity run by Griles’ girlfriend. In a pattern common among Bush appointees, Griles worked in the Reagan administration, then spent years lobbying for coal interests before Bush brought him back to public service. Under Interior Secretary James Watt, Griles helped erode strip-mining regulations. Under Bush, he has weakened enforcement of mountaintop-removal controls. In June, Griles was sentenced to 10 months in prison for obstructing the investigation into Abramoff’s crimes. His efforts at destroying rural Kentucky and West Virginia remain unpunished.
While the DEIS contains good information about the impacts of mountaintop removal on water quality and ecology, the fingerprints of industry insiders are obvious. Repeatedly, the report invokes “the Nation’s need for coal as an essential source of energy,” language from the controlling federal legislation, as a reason to discard policies that would restrict coal yields, yet the report clearly explains that Appalachian coal is inferior due to high sulfur content and makes up a small and declining portion of the U.S. supply. OSM neglects the costs of surface mining on tourism, forestry and public health.
This weak economic rationale is used to dismiss several policy alternatives that would better protect forests and waters. In contrast, scientific justifications for restrictions on surface mining are painstakingly scrutinized then dismissed as inadequate. The 16 policy alternatives studied get winnowed down to four, one of which is the “no action” alternative. With the 12 better options removed from consideration, including alternatives that would widen buffers, remove exemptions and account for cumulative impacts, the preferred alternative is indeed “the most environmentally protective.” It allows rubble to be dumped directly and permanently into streams, but vaguely promises to minimize the amount of debris generated at each mine. Given OSM’s enforcement history, such promises mean little.
While conservation and energy efficiency are beyond the scope of the document, the emphasis on a high coal yield underscores the gross failure of the Bush administration to address energy independence and air pollution. Simple conservation measures could eliminate the need for surface mining in Appalachia. A comprehensive national energy policy could do far more. Instead, Bush can only see the short-term profits of crony firms doing long-term damage to our mountains.
The creeks and streams of Appalachia curl and tumble together like pen strokes forming words, eventually becoming rivers like the Clinch and Cumberland that feed the Tennessee and the mighty Mississippi. Our handwritten Constitution and Bill of Rights, mere ink on paper, gave rise to a great nation that eventually stretched to an ocean unknown to our founding fathers. George Bush respects none of it. He wants to bury the headwaters of our great rivers like he has buried the separation of powers.
His administration has ignored court oversight. First a Republican Congress and now, appallingly, a Democratic Congress has abdicated its responsibility to check Presidential power and even enabled transfers of power to the executive branch. The wellspring of our freedoms, the checks and balances designed to constrain government power, are being poisoned by lobbyists and campaign donors while they bury our streams under blown-apart mountains.
All that is left of America is people power, and you can exercise your power in this case. OSM is accepting public comments on their draft statement until October 23. For your convenience, on the next page is a comment. Use it as a template for your own comments, or just tear out the page and send it in! Be nice; the people who open the mail and process the comments, in fact most of the people who work for OSM, are decent folks. Speak up so they can do the right thing.