Dozens of scientific studies have linked mountaintop removal coal mining to high rates of cancer and other diseases in nearby communities. But as these children explain, you don’t need to be a scientist to understand the devastating impact that mountaintop removal has on the health and quality of life of people living nearby.

Thanks to thousands of people who have spoken up for Appalachian mountains and communities time and again, President Obama’s agencies have taken major steps to reduce the destruction caused by mountaintop removal coal mining over the past four years.

As the president is sworn in to a second term later this month, we have an opportunity to finish the job and stop mountaintop removal once and for all. But we need to ensure that President Obama makes this a priority in his second term.

That’s where you come in. Please join these kids in sending a clear message to the White House: No more excuses, Mr. President. End mountaintop removal. Now.

Help these children spread the word about what’s happening in their communities by sharing this video with your friends, family and colleagues.

During a campaign season in which climate change featured most prominently as a laugh line at the Republican National Convention, the low point was when CNN’s Candy Crowley addressed “all you climate people” in her explanation of why climate didn’t come up during the presidential debates. Who knew that human disruption of the global climate had become such a narrow, provincial concern?

But there’s important information in the fact that a senior reporter for a major network could dismiss climate change as essentially a special interest issue. It’s evidence, if more were needed, that “all us climate people” got our butts kicked in the battle for the narrative in the 2012 election.

And like the Republican Party, which is now undergoing the usual soul-searching that follows a big electoral defeat, those of us who believe that inaction on climate is the greatest threat facing our civilization (never mind the economy) have some serious soul-searching to do about our own defeat, which occurred long before any votes were counted.

Crowley’s explanation was consistent with the conventional wisdom on why the president didn’t make climate an issue. Because it was an “economy election,” and everyone in the D.C. press must accept that government action on climate change could do serious harm to the economy (because “it’s become part of the culture,” even if it’s not true), any discussion of climate policy by the president would have been off-message and worked against his chances for reelection.

The unconventional wisdom, popular among “climate people,” is that the Obama campaign failed to recognize the high level of popular support for action on climate change and missed a golden opportunity to seize a winning wedge issue when they chose the more politically expedient route of ignoring it.

There’s probably some truth to both of these explanations, but here’s a third one that is particularly useful in the context of a presidential election: The campaigns avoided talking about climate policy because they believed that raising the issue would be harmful in a few areas of key swing states that would likely decide the election.

Look, it’s tempting to point to all the national polls showing popular support for climate policy and say, “Climate is a winning campaign issue.” But a political strategist would find nothing useful in those polls, because campaigns are not won by appealing to the sentiments of the average American. Similarly, when a presidential candidate is speaking to a national audience, it’s easy to believe they are speaking to us — all of us. But they’re not. By and large, the candidates’ speeches are written to appeal to a handful of undecided voters in a few swing states, with just enough partisan red meat thrown in to motivate the party base to volunteer for the campaign and turn out to vote.

Americans understand that those swing areas are the “tail that wags the dog” of our national elections, but don’t necessarily think about the logical conclusion of that fact; the concerns and attitudes of swing voters in swing states are the “tail that wags the dog” of campaign messages, media coverage, and thus public understanding of which issues are important in the campaign.

The problem is, fossil fuel interests have figured out how to wag that dog. They know they can’t win public opinion nationally, but by focusing resources in key areas of swing states such as Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, they can frame the local discussion of climate policy and environmental regulations to their advantage (i.e., as a “job-killing war on coal”) and essentially neutralize those issues at the national level — at least during the election season.

If the Obama campaign’s pre-election polling looked anything like the maps of election results in coal-mining regions of southwestern Virginia and southern Ohio, it’s easy to imagine strategists telling the president, “Don’t exacerbate this ‘war on coal’ thing or it could hurt us in swing states”:

This is the kind of map that pundits would be waving around if the election had gone the other way. The dark-red areas show the bleeding edge of the electoral and demographic movement toward the Republican Party that would have won the election for the GOP if those shifts had not been overwhelmed by pro-Democratic movement in other parts of the country. They also show where the Republican economic message of easing regulation was resonating with voters — as well as where Obama failed to win the union vote.

If Romney had won, it would be the rural, white demographic in coal-mining regions that would be the focus of the “how he won” stories, not the historic impact of the Latino, women’s, and youth vote. Pundits would be talking about how anti-regulation messages like “stop Obama’s war on coal” resonated with the electorate and how Republicans won a mandate to roll back environmental and public health regulations.

Exhibit A of that winning Republican strategy would have been Boone County, W.Va., which produces more coal than any other county east of the Mississippi River, and saw the largest pro-Republican swing (42 percent) of all 3,140 counties in the U.S. between 2008 and 2012. Of course, West Virginia is hardly a swing state, but the same pattern holds for southwestern Virginia, where the vote margin in the six coal mining counties swung in favor of Republicans by 24 percent — by far the best showing in a state that Romney barely lost:

Of course, some will look at maps of where Republicans made gains and say “So what? The Republican strategy failed.”

That is a fair point, from a purely political perspective. But there’s a lot of important information in these maps for those of who us aren’t concerned with electing Democrats, but rather with reducing greenhouse gas emissions, accelerating the deployment of clean energy solutions, ending mountaintop-removal coal mining, or all that and then some. They show the political price the administration paid for EPA’s actions to address greenhouse gas emissions, mercury pollution from power plants, and the impacts of mountaintop-removal mining on streams.

In other words, the maps demonstrate environmental and public health advocates’ collective failure to provide “political cover” in a politically critical region of the country for the EPA actions we demanded. They show why legislators tend to get defeated for supporting the issues we care about, and they help explain the embarrassing public displays of obeisance to the coal industry by politicians who survive, like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who shot a bullet through the climate bill in a 2010 campaign ad, and Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), who jumped out of an airplane in support of mountaintop-removal coal mining.

Nevertheless, as much as the coal industry would like us to believe that these anti-Obama voting trends are a backlash against the economic impact of EPA rules on hard-working people, there is simply no economic data to back that up. Mining jobs haven’t declined in most areas, even though demand for coal has dropped precipitously due to competition from natural gas.

The real reason for the pro-Republican swing is that coal industry-sponsored groups, with the assistance of billionaire-funded right-wing groups like Americans for Prosperity, were on the ground in coal-mining regions for the past three years holding rallies, putting up billboards, generating massive turnout to public hearings, and basically doing the kind of effective community organizing that is straight out of the progressive playbook.

As for what we can do better next time around, Bill McKibben got the soul-searching process for “climate people” going in the right direction even before the election was over, blaming our lack of progress on the fact that “we keep waiting for our political leaders to lead.” In other words, we need to stop worrying so much about what presidential candidates are or are not saying and get out and start building a movement of people talking about it to their neighbors, to their newspapers, and to their elected officials. That is exactly what McKibben is doing with his 20-city “Do The Math” tour that kicked off the day after the election.

But the lesson from the climate silence in the last election is that we can’t just build a movement in urban areas. We also need a ground game in the remote corners of swing states where national elections are won and lost, where campaign narratives are targeted, and where climate activists rarely tread. We need a strategy to provide key members of Congress and presidential candidates the kind of political cover that they need to support our issues without getting slaughtered in the next election.

It’s not as impossible as it might look from a LEED-certified, urban office building, because people in coal-mining regions care about the same things that people everywhere else care about. The difference is people in places like Appalachia have a stronger cultural and economic attachment to coal — one that the “agents of climate inaction” know how to exploit and that most environmental and climate advocates have no idea how to honor.

What coal companies and allies have done so well in mining communities is to frame every climate, public health, and environmental policy implemented by the Obama administration as part of a “war on coal” that threatens the economy of the region. However, if policies to protect clean water or stop the dumping of mine waste into streams are disaggregated from the “war on coal” frame, they’re actually nearly as popular in Appalachia as they are elsewhere in the country.

I haven’t seen any regional polls specifically about climate change, but I suspect we’d find a similar pattern revealing that Appalachians believe climate change is a problem and support action to address it. But people in mining communities are not going to support a war on coal, and the problem for “all you climate people” in breaking through the coal industry’s framing is that many of you actually do support a war on coal, or at least your rhetoric suggests you do.

That’s been particularly evident since the failure of the climate bill, when much of the focus of green groups and climate funders shifted to a strategy of “targeting” old coal-fired power plants for retirement. While there are certainly good arguments for why old coal plants should be retired, the public focus of big green groups on shutting down coal plants and their penchant for claiming credit for retirements that are the result of unrelated economic factors only strengthens the coal industry’s “war on coal” narrative and exacerbates the administration’s problem with swing-state voters.

Another reason that the organizing of right-wing groups like AFP has gone largely uncontested in coal country is a simple matter of resources. There are groups like Kentuckians For The Commonwealth that are doing extraordinarily effective organizing in regions where coal is mined, but when a group like AFP comes in with an $11 million ad campaign and bottomless pockets for on-the-ground organizing, we’re in the position of bringing a knife to a nuclear showdown.

Environmental and community advocates will never match the resources of the powerful industries they challenge, but the problem is particularly acute in places like Appalachia, where the big climate funders have largely turned a blind eye to the region. They have so far chosen not to support efforts to stop mountaintop removal and other egregious mining techniques, even though those are the issues that have proven to be effective in swaying public opinion and opening minds. In Appalachia, for instance, mountaintop removal and drinking water pollution are potent “gateway issues” that have inspired many residents to question the honesty and benevolence of the coal industry and their political allies in general.

But by far the most effective way to challenge the power of the “agents of climate inaction” in coal country is to enact policies to diversify the economy and build local support for clean energy industries. While a lot of resources have rightly been expended toward building the energy efficiency and renewable energy industries across the country, climate funders and big environmental groups have provided little if any support for economic initiatives to diversify the economy specifically in coal-dependent regions.

To make matters worse, local politicians in the pocket of the coal industry have shown little initiative in seeking to attract clean energy investments to the region, which puts coal mining regions at an even greater disadvantage.

The best thing that “all you climate people” can do to help break polluting industries’ grip on the tail that’s been wagging the dog of our national energy debate is to support policies to bring clean energy investments to coal-mining communities. Coal use is on the decline, but the political and economic power of the industry in the region where coal is mined has not waned — and won’t, until other industries replace it.

That’s not just good strategy, but it’s also the right thing to do. The communities that have supplied the brunt of America’s energy needs since the Industrial Revolution and powered our rise to be the greatest economy on Earth should not be tossed aside as we move toward a future powered by clean and renewable energy — they should be part of it. And the more we make them a part of that future, the faster we’ll get there.

On October 18th, 1972, the Clean Water Act was passed by Congress on an overwhelming bipartisan vote. Now, forty years later, our rivers, lakes and bays are in far better condition and nobody is yearning for the days when the Cuyahoga River repeatedly caught on fire and Lake Erie was pronounced “dead.”

Yet, it’s hard not to feel some nostalgia for an era when such a sweeping piece of legislation, which was viciously opposed by big polluting industries, could pass the House of Representatives on a vote of 366-11. The early 1970s were a time when politicians of both parties could rise above partisan politics and powerful corporate interests to support such lofty goals as restoring and maintaining the “chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.”

How times have changed. Since it convened in January of 2011, the House of Representatives has voted 38 times to weaken the Clean Water Act and other laws protecting water quality – and what has rightly been called the most anti-environmental Congress in history isn’t even over yet.

Appalachian Voices released a report [pdf] today that shows how dramatically the attitudes of politicians have changed in the Southeast since the region’s Congressional delegation voted almost unanimously in favor of the Clean Water Act back in 1972. On those 38 bills to weaken clean water protections passed in the House, southeastern representatives voted in favor more than 75 percent of the time.

But the report released by Appalachian Voices today isn’t focused on bashing members of Congress for all of those bad votes; it looks at how the Clean Water Act is improving the lives of people across the region in very real and tangible ways. Despite all the hyperventilating by polluting industries and their political allies about “job-killing regulations” and a “war on coal,” it turns out that the Clean Water Act is creating opportunities to start and grow businesses, from oyster farming on the Chesapeake bay in Virginia to whitewater rafting on the Nolichucky River in Tennessee.

What’s most striking about the stories in the report is how Clean Water Act programs are providing tools that are bringing communities together across all political, class and
racial lines based on a common purpose of protecting their most precious natural resource and improving everyone’s quality of life. The positive and unifying impact of the Clean Water Act on communities in the real world is in stark contrast to the partisan rancor and divisive rhetoric around regulations in Washington, DC.

So pour yourself a tall glass of clean drinking water, take a look at the report [pdf], and join us in celebrating 40 years of successes in improving the health of our streams, communities and the quality of life of all Americans.

In a jaw-dropping display of contempt and disregard for the communities and landscapes where they mine coal, three coal companies back in 2009 challenged the listing of West Virginia’s Blair Mountain on the National Register of Historic Places. The companies, including mining behemoths Alpha Natural Resources and Arch Coal, opposed the listing of Blair Mountain as a historic site because it could interfere with their plans to conduct mountaintop removal mining operations on the Spruce Fork Ridge battlefield, site of the “largest organized armed uprising in American labor history,” and the most important historic landmark in Central Appalachia.

The 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain was the culmination of a three-year struggle to unionize the coal mines of southern West Virginia and ended only when federal troops intervened on behalf of anti-union coal companies. There are few sites as significant as Blair Mountain that commemorate the brave men and women who laid down their lives for a movement that has brought Americans everything from the weekend to child labor laws to the largest and most prosperous middle class the world has ever seen.

The battlefield on Blair Mountain was listed as a national historic landmark in 2009, but under pressure from coal companies, the West Virginia Historic Preservation Officer reversed that decision several months later. Last Week, a federal judge
threw out an appeal by a coalition of environmental and historic preservation organizations led by the Sierra Club that sought to restore the historic designation.

Given the national importance of the Blair Mountain battlefield, why did the judge side with the coal companies? It turns out, the ruling had nothing to do with whether or not Blair Mountain deserves designation as a historic landmark. Even though the “factual background” of the case raised big questions about the evidence used to justify the de-listing of Blair Mountain, the judge denied the plaintiffs legal standing to sue on the grounds that any injury (i.e., destruction of the battlefield) resulting from that decision was “purely conjectural.” Heck, who could predict whether Alpha Natural Resources and Arch Coal will actually decide to seek new permits or make use of their existing ones to blast Blair Mountain into smithereens in order to make a few million bucks for their shareholders?

While there’s little value in non-lawyers critiquing a judge’s decision, the important thing for the rest of us is to ensure that Blair Mountain does not get blasted off the map – a goal that could be accomplished by a number of other means. Given the assertion of the judge that Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources could choose not to use their permits to blast away the mountain, one solution might be to convince those companies to do the right thing. I would encourage anyone who thinks they have leverage to convince the CEOs of these companies to preserve Blair Mountain to give it a shot, and do it soon.

But for my part, I hold out little hope for that solution. While blasting apart Blair Mountain for a few million tons of coal might be the moral equivalent of developing the battlefield at Gettysburg into a massive toxic waste dump, this episode demonstrates once again that big coal companies value the moral high ground about as much as they value the high peaks, ridges and headwater valleys of Appalachia. Which is to say, their “values” appear to go no further than the numbers after the dollar signs in their quarterly profit-and-loss statements.

The other, more likely scenario would be for Americans to convince the President and his administration to definitively protect the Blair Mountain battlefield through one of a number of tools at their disposal. Those tools include using the Antiquities Act to designate Blair Mountain as a national monument, directing the National Park Service to revisit its questionable decision to de-list the the site as a historic landmark, designate the mountain as “Lands Unsuitable for Mining” under the Surface Mine Control and Reclamation Act… there are any number of routes the Administration might take to prevent the destruction of Blair Mountain if it feels compelled to do so.

That’s where you come in. The bottom line is that protecting this invaluable and irreplaceable landmark is well within the administration’s power, and the President is accountable to you. So please, take this opportunity to tell the President how important it is to you that Blair Mountain be protected and demand his agencies use every means at their disposal to ensure it is not blasted off the map.

Environmental and community advocates got some jarring news Tuesday when a federal judge rejected EPA’s “guidance” on surface mine permitting in Appalachia — the centerpiece of its three-year effort to curtail the environmental damage caused by mountaintop-removal coal mining.

While it was unwelcome news, it was not as devastating as portrayed in the initial round of news stories, which appeared to be heavily influenced by the coal industry’s false narrative about an “out-of-control” EPA issuing regulations willy-nilly while going out of its way to trample on the Constitution and kill jobs.

In fact, the court objected to the procedural approach EPA took to reduce what top scientists have called the “pervasive and irreversible” impacts of mountaintop removal, but specifically not to the authority — or obligation — of EPA and other federal agencies to protect streams from being polluted or obliterated by mountaintop-removal coal mining. Nor did the court challenge the overwhelming evidence by scientists, health professionals, and the findings of EPA’s independent Science Advisory Panel that mountaintop-removal mining has disastrous impacts on streams and people.

Even the arcane procedural issues on which the decision was based are far from a settled matter of law — the decision is likely to be appealed by the EPA.

Nevertheless, the headlines left many Appalachian residents terrified by the prospect that regulators would revert to the lame permit rules of the Bush administration. While there is always a chance that could happen, Appalachians can take some comfort that agencies rubber-stamping piles of permits is not a logical or inevitable outcome of the court’s decision.

The risk, of course, is that the Obama administration will see this as an opportunity to abandon its efforts to rein in the impacts of mountaintop removal, efforts which have caused a fierce backlash from the coal industry and its allies. In the heat of campaign season, there’s probably some temptation to try to offset the political damage that the rhetoric about “Obama’s war on coal” is doing in remote corners of swing states like Ohio and Virginia, even if it means the president turns his back on his oft-repeated commitment to science-based decisionmaking by his agencies.

On the bright side, the way the administration perceives that political calculus is something that everyday Americans can do something about. But we’d better speak up now. Seriously, anyone who thinks that America’s oldest and most biologically diverse mountains ought not be obliterated to pad the pockets of coal company executives and shareholders needs to say so. Loudly.

The administration has all the evidence and authority it needs to deny mountaintop-removal permits. While EPA appeals the D.C. court decision, and/or figures out a different way to ensure that permits comply with the Clean Water Act, it’s crucial that other agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers and the Office of Surface Mining make darn sure that science is applied in the permitting process. Based on what we know, that should be tantamount to denying any permit that involves disposing of mine waste into streams.

But there is also a lesson here for the EPA — and an opportunity to address the root of the problem. Despite tens of thousands of comments urging EPA to act, the agency has yet to overturn the Bush administration’s nefarious change to the so-called “fill rule.” This rule defines what sort of material can be used to modify a stream, wetland, or other water body for the purpose of building a road, dredging a river, etc. In 2002, the Bush administration changed the definition of “fill” such that any waste from a surface mining operation is, by definition, fill — meaning it’s not only OK to dump in streams, it’s essentially considered a public benefit. Yes, you heard right — a benefit.

Every mountaintop-removal-related permit issued by the Obama administration has been based on that perverse logic. The lesson for EPA is that it would be futile to try to build a sensible, protective permitting regime on top of this absurd foundation laid by the Bush administration. The EPA should overturn and replace the Bush-era fill rule.

A final lesson from this court decision is that we cannot rely solely on administrative guidances and rules to protect Appalachian citizens, the oldest mountains on the continent, or the headwaters of the drinking water supply of millions of Americans. Mountaintop-removal coal mining is an outrage that should be banned by Congress, or there will always be the risk of a court striking down or a new administration overturning it, no matter how well the science supports it.

In 2002, Reps. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) introduced the Clean Water Protection Act, which would overturn the Bush fill rule. Since then, people and organizations across Appalachia have supported the bipartisan bill by carrying a simple message to universities, church groups and Rotary Clubs across America: They’re blowing up our mountains and there oughtta be a law! Today, the bill has 130 bipartisan cosponsors in the House of Representatives. Additional legislation has been introduced recently that would put a moratorium on mountaintop mining permits.

The bottom line is that Appalachian citizens need better protection than a non-binding agency guidance. EPA should begin a formal rule-making to undo the violence done to Clean Water Act enforcement by the Bush fill rule. And ultimately, citizens won’t be satisfied until Congress passes the Clean Water Protection Act, the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Act, or some other law that will not be so easily overturned or manipulated by ever-changing administrations and courts.

It’s not only what the science dictates, it’s what Appalachian citizens deserve.

Photo: iLoveMountains

The environmental groups uncovered a massive failure by the industry to file accurate water discharge monitoring reports. They filed an intent to sue which triggered the investigation by the state’s Energy and Environment Cabinet. Also revealed was the cabinet’s failure to oversee a credible water monitoring program by the coal industry.

In some cases, state regulators allowed the companies to go for as long as three years without filing required quarterly water-monitoring reports. In other instances, the companies repeatedly filed the same highly detailed data, without even changing the dates. So complete was the lack of state oversight it’s impossible to say whether the mines were violating their water pollution permits or not.

This time around, none of the evidence that mines were violating pollution limits is in question. Moreover, the notice of intent to sue came at a particularly bad time for the coal industry and for Kentucky’s regulatory agencies, right when their momentum to hamstring the EPA’s authority was really starting to gather steam. Examples of recent anti-EPA efforts include:

• Passage of a bill by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee designed to eviscerate EPA’s authority to enforce the Clean Water Act;
• Recent calls from at least three Republican presidential candidates to abolish the EPA altogether;
• A bill that was introduced in the Senate last February that really would abolish the EPA.

In the midst of Big Coal’s anti-regulatory crusade, however, Kentucky coal companies have given Americans another unmistakable reminder of exactly why it is that we really, really need an EPA — and why a poll for the Natural Resources Defense Council shows that the agency enjoys the overwhelming support of Americans [PDF] from across the political spectrum. The new evidence that was provided by environmental and community groups of fraudulent reporting of pollution discharges by companies — allegations that were written off by Kentucky regulators as “transcription errors” — is beyond embarrassing for a state that is complaining to Congress, judges, and anyone else who will listen about how the EPA is overstepping its authority to protect waterways. The premise of the most recent anti-EPA bill is that a bunch of jack-booted thugs from the EPA are coming in and mucking things up for the state agencies, who already have their regulatory houses well in order.

In testimony before the House committee that passed the bill last week, Len Peters, the secretary of the Kentucky Environment and Energy Cabinet (the agency that enforces environmental laws in Kentucky), told members of Congress:

Coal can be and is being mined in an environmentally responsible manner — we continue to make improvements, and the industry has been willing to do things better … We strongly believe the EPA’s objections to recent proposed draft permits for Clean Water Act 402 permits for surface mining operations in Kentucky were arbitrary.

Furthermore, it was Peters’ agency that refused to sanction one of these same companies for dumping waste into streams without even bothering to obtain a permit [PDF] and called allegations by environmental groups that the state did a poor job of investigating their complaints “bordering on specious.”

But the new analysis of reports submitted by coal companies over the last few years leaves the coal companies and state regulators with a lot of explaining to do.

In a previous analysis, the water team at Appalachian Voices showed how monthly reports provided by coal companies of specific conductivity measurements in the discharge from mountaintop-removal mines were extremely suspicious (specific conductivity is a measure of salt in water and is an indicator of a host of pollutants such as toxic metals and other dissolved solids). In brief, reports submitted after the April 1 announcement by the EPA of a new guidance on conductivity levels in the discharge from coal mines (shaded red in the chart below) showed a remarkable drop from levels reported before the EPA announcement (shaded green). In fact, standard statistical tests showed that the chance that these trends could be explained by random transcription errors or natural variation was nearly one in a googol (that’s a 1 with a 100 zeros after it).

Appalachian VoicesAfter the previous lawsuit filed in October led the state to require companies to use new labs to monitor their mine discharge, the reports from these new labs (shown in blue), revealed even more stunning changes from the previous measurements. Moreover, conductivity was far from the only water quality measurement that showed jaw-dropping changes after the new water testing lab was hired — reported levels of manganese and total suspend solids showed similar trends. The previous reports were particularly hard to believe for anyone who has seen the water coming off of these mountaintop-removal sites (see vide
o from the Appalachian Water Watch team below).

Fortunately, this time the reported values pass the smell test, as they reflect the characteristics of independent measurements taken by scientists at universities and federal agencies. Unfortunately for the coal companies, these more realistic measurements reveal an enormous number of violations of all required monitoring parameters. Exceedances included everything from average monthly total suspended solids (TSS) levels up to 15 times higher than allowed by the permit, average monthly manganese and iron levels more than three times higher than allowed, as well as numerous pH, alkalinity, and acidity violations.

No laughing matter

By almost any standard, the actions of Kentucky politicians and agency officials since the EPA first began its more stringent reviews of mountaintop-removal permits have been absurd. For instance, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported this story on one Kentucky politician’s efforts to exempt the state from EPA enforcement:

“The EPA don’t understand mining,” House Natural Resources and Environment Chairman Jim Gooch, D-Providence, said at his committee’s hearing.

Gooch’s committee unanimously approved his House Bill 421, which would exempt coal mining from the federal Clean Water Act and other EPA regulation if the coal is used inside Kentucky and does not cross state lines. The lone critic at the hearing, environmental lawyer Tom FitzGerald, told lawmakers that about 20 percent of the sediment produced by coal mining goes into rivers that flow outside Kentucky’s borders.

David Gooch, president of Kentucky Coal Operators and Associates, provided his opinion of just who should be considered the real experts on water quality, which, of course, is not scientists at the EPA but politicians like himself:

“The EPA — these are not elected officials,” David Gooch said. “They are career bureaucrats who sit in their ivory tower in Washington, D.C., and decide what the science should be.”

Things got even wackier when another Kentucky politician introduced legislation to declare Kentucky a “sanctuary state” for coal mining after hearing about “sanctuary cities” declaring themselves exempt from federal immigration law.

These shenanigans from Kentucky politicians and regulators would be hilarious were the stakes not so high for the people who live in communities impacted by mountaintop-removal mines. But as more and more science comes out on the health impacts of living near mountaintop-removal mines, the picture for residents of Appalachian coal communities gets more and more bleak.

Just last week, researchers at Washington State University and West Virginia University published a peer-reviewed study entitled, “The Association between Mountaintop Mining and Birth Defects among Live Births in Central Appalachia, 1996-2003.” The study showed that six types of birth defects occurred more frequently in areas near mountaintop-removal mines, as compared to non-mining areas. The main types of birth defects included: circulatory/respiratory, central nervous system, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, urogenital and problems from “other” types of defects.

Melissa Ahern of Washington State University, one of the authors, explained:

[The study] shows that places where the environment — the earth, air and water — has undergone the greatest disturbance from mining are also the places where birth defect rates are the highest.

This study came on the heels of another study published last month in the American Journal of Public Health that concluded, “Residents of mountaintop mining counties reported significantly more days of poor physical, mental, and activity limitation and poorer self-rated health compared with the other county groupings.”

And just yesterday, a study was published in the journal Population Health Metrics that helps put these health impacts in perspective as they relate to the lawsuit filed Tuesday against ICG and Frasure Creek. An analysis of life expectancy data released with the study showed that:

• All of the eight counties in Kentucky where ICG and Frasure Creek operate mountaintop-removal mines are among the bottom 10 percent of U.S. counties in terms of life expectancy
• All but two have seen a decrease in life expectancy over the past 10 years
• Two of the counties, Perry and Pike, which happen to be the two biggest coal producing counties in Kentucky, were both among the bottom 10 (out of 3,147 counties) for trends in life expectancy between 1997 and 2007. While nationwide life expectancy increased by 1.5 years over the decade, average life expectancy in these two counties actually decreased by about a year.
• All eight of the counties have lost population over the 20 year period of the study

Finally, while coal companies and supporters in Congress argue that EPA regulations are destroying jobs, while mountaintop-removal mines create them, any objective analysis of actual data reveals that the opposite is true. Because underground mines employ more miners than mountaintop-removal mines for every ton they produce, it turns out that EPA’s stricter enforcement appears to be leading to an increase in mining jobs — far from the alleged “Assault on Appalachian Jobs” that the EPA is accused of by members of Congress. As shown in the chart below, the number of mining jobs in Appalachia has increased by 3.5 percent since the EPA first began its enhanced review of mountaintop-removal permits and that number is up by a whopping 8.5 percent since the start of the recession. By comparison, the overall U.S. economy shed 5 percent of its workforce over that same period.

Americans say: Let the EPA do its job!

The NRDC poll released earlier this year found that:

• Americans want the EPA to do more, not less. Almost two thirds of Americans (63 percent) say “the EPA needs to do more to hold polluters accountable and protect the air and water,” versus under a third (29 percent) who think the EPA already “does too much and places too many costly restrictions on businesses and individuals.”
• Americans do not want Congress to kill the EPA’s anti-pollution updates. More than three out of four Americans (77 percent) — including 61 percent of Republicans — say “Congress (should) let the EPA do its job.”
• The majority of Republicans — and all Americans — oppose the former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s plan to dismantle the EPA.

What Tuesday’s action by environmental and citizens groups shows is that the EPA needs to do a lot more to protect water quality of Appalachian streams and the health of Appalachian communities, not less. While some members of Congress and politicians in Kentucky and West Virginia will no doubt continue to make a fuss, the EPA would be neglecting its core responsibility if it backed off its recent enforcement actions one iota. The evidence tha
t the state of Kentucky is unwilling or unable to enforce the Clean Water Act is overwhelming and cannot be ignored.

Fortunately for the EPA, two thirds of Americans support them doing a better job of holding polluters accountable. The EPA should listen to Americans and to their own scientists, not coal companies or disgruntled politicians. And beyond the EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act, it’s time for the Obama administration to strengthen its spine, stop playing politics, and put an end to mountaintop removal forever.

Click here to send a message to your member of Congress asking him or her to let EPA do its job and to oppose any efforts to roll back the agency’s authority.

Protestors march on Blair Mountain.Photo: Appalachian Voices

Some UMWA miners have joined hundreds of environmental and Appalachian community advocates who are marching to Blair Mountain on the 90th anniversary of one of the greatest labor battles in American history.

Both groups want to protect this historic mountain from the efforts of coal companies to obliterate parts of the battlefield in order to conduct mountaintop-removal coal mining operations.

Here’s a great (and brief) update on the march from the team at iLoveMountains.org that is well worth a watch:

In fact, the march to Blair Mountain is only one of several recent examples where the interests of labor and environmental advocates are closely aligned. For instance, last week’s buyout of Massey Energy was another recent event celebrated by environmentalists, community groups, and organized labor alike. Massey was not only reckless, negligent, and probably criminal in last year’s disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, but the company was by far the largest operator of mountaintop-removal coal mines in Appalachia and a notorious scofflaw in regard to environmental laws like the Clean Water Act. Massey had also long been known for its union-busting practices.

A third — and by far the most important — factor linking the struggles of these groups is an almost existential crisis they are facing as a result of America’s recent, acute attack of what I like to call “Deficit Attention and Hypocrisy Disorder” (hat tip). The takeover of many state legislatures and governors’ offices by anti-government and anti-union ideologues last November has resulted in bills to strip collective bargaining rights of public employees in states from Ohio and Wisconsin to Florida and Tennessee — all of which, of course, is taking place under the false pretense of reducing the deficit.

Environmentalists got a similar wake-up call when the new Republican majority in the House sought to eviscerate EPA’s ability to enforce the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts through amendments to the House Budget bill last February. Again, this was all done under the false banner of reducing the deficit.

If we are going to avoid disaster in this next election cycle, then we need to break out of our circular firing squad and do our part to change the narrative — and thus the mandate of whoever controls the reins of government after the next election — away from “Deficit Attention and Hypocrisy Disorder” and back toward creating jobs and protecting the health and safety of workers and the environment in which they live.

Why can’t we all just get along?

Community organizers, environmental groups, and the UMWA once worked shoulder to shoulder to pass regulations on strip mining. Those efforts culminated in the passage of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act in 1977. Unfortunately, a lot of resentment has developed between these groups over the past 15 years, mostly stemming from divergent positions on the environmentally devastating and job-destroying practice of mountaintop removal. While UMWA does not have an official position on mountaintop removal, a number of public statements by UMWA President Cecil Roberts have been explicitly supportive of the practice.

Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette has written a lot about the complex balancing act that Cecil Roberts must perform in order to represent all UMWA members (a small proportion of which work at mountaintop removal and other types of surface mines in Appalachia) while not entirely alienating his union from other progressive causes and constituencies that are natural political allies of the union (see here, here; and here). The problem is that stopping the destruction caused by mountaintop removal is among the top priorities of many progressive groups in Appalachia, whose feelings toward the UMWA now range from frustration to rage.

Of course, the attitude of some union miners toward environmental groups and community activists is equally venomous, but that does not appear to be representative of the feelings of most UMWA members (many of whom are retired). For instance, a 2008 poll of likely voters in the specific region where mountaintop removal occurs showed that opposition to mountaintop-removal mining was even greater among union households than it was among the general population of the region. In fact, it’s well worth taking a look at the key findings of that poll, which was commissioned by my organization in advance of the 2008 elections (a portion of the results, summarized by the polling firm Gerstein and Agne, is available here [PDF]). According to the firm that conducted the polling, the key results included:

• Voters in the Appalachian region oppose mountaintop-removal mining and are more likely to support a presidential candidate who similarly opposes the method.
• Majorities of two key audiences — independents and union households — oppose mountaintop removal.
• Voters reject the jobs vs. environment frame of mountaintop-removal supporters.
• Renewable energy is seen as the long-term key to energy security, economic growth, and the quality of life of local communities.
• There is overwhelming support for Clean Water Protection Act — even after opponents say it will mean an end to mountaintop-removal mining in their state.

It would not be fair, however, to put all of the blame for the sour relationship onto UMWA leadership. While most local opponents of mountaintop-removal mining are not opposed to all coal mining, the attitudes and statements of some outspoken opponents of mountaintop removal have been distinctly anti-coal. That’s not a message that resonates well with rank-and-file members of the UMWA. Moreover, while there are a growing numb
er of environmental and community groups promoting economic development around renewable energy and weatherization in the region, creating new jobs and new industries has never been the core strength of environmental groups.

That said, there is increasing evidence that moves by the EPA to rein in the permitting of the most destructive new mountaintop-removal mines are creating jobs, not destroying them. It turns out that mining jobs have been a real bright spot in the national and regional employment picture since the start of the Great Recession. As shown in the graph below, the number of mining jobs in Appalachia has increased by 8.5 percent over the same time period that the overall U.S. economy shed more than 5 percent of its workforce. In fact, the number of mining jobs has increased substantially since the EPA started it’s “enhanced review” of mine permits and since their new guidance on surface mine permitting went into effect in April of last year.

In short, it seems that much of the reason for the past friction between UMWA and environmental groups stems from false perceptions and poor communication rather than from fundamentally divergent interests. The following are my humble suggestions for a road map to repair and expand the natural alliance between environmental and labor organizations in Appalachia.

1. Get the facts

The perception created by the coal industry that the EPA is destroying mining jobs and causing an economic crisis in Appalachia is entrenched firmly enough in the public discourse to withstand a mountain on contrary evidence. However, the unions should know better than to believe this kind of rhetoric from coal companies and trade associations that have used the same “sky-is-falling” estimates of job losses to oppose every effort by the unions to strengthen workplace safety laws and strengthen the enforcement of those already on the books. The UMWA knows well that this rhetoric is false and that stronger safety laws actually create more jobs. They should also know that the same principle applies to health and environmental laws — and there’s plenty of evidence to show that strengthening them is already creating new mining jobs and helping to save existing ones.

On the other hand, environmental and community advocates have also been pretty loose with the facts at times. One particular example is a lot of counterproductive rhetoric about coal from mountaintop-removal mines being mostly shipped overseas. This rhetoric is presumably used in an effort to play on the populist xenophobia that has won many an election for unscrupulous politicians, but it is simply untrue — almost all of the coal shipped out of eastern ports is metallurgical coal used for steel-making, which is mined almost entirely underground. Drumming up opposition to exports of metallurgical coal is counterproductive for environmental advocates — and anathema to unions and potential allies outside the region that depend on shipping revenues — because it undermines the most immediate opportunity to replace jobs in mountaintop-removal mining.

While there are certainly environmental, health, and safety problems at underground mines and processing facilities that produce metallurgical coal, the high price that met coal commands compared to steam coal (i.e., coal used to produce electricity) can support far more environmentally responsible mining and waste disposal practices. In addition, the sky-rocketing price of metallurgical coal can support bigger payrolls, safer mines, higher wages, and better benefits for miners. Ultimately, it may very well help the effort to unionize mines, which creates even more jobs and better safety practices.

2. Embrace the future

Shortly before he died, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) wrote a powerful op-ed urging the coal industry in his state to “embrace the future.” As the late senator wrote:

The truth is that some form of climate legislation will likely become public policy because most American voters want a healthier environment. Major coal-fired power plants and coal operators operating in West Virginia have wisely already embraced this reality, and are making significant investments to prepare. …

The greatest threats to the future of coal do not come from possible constraints on mountaintop-removal mining or other environmental regulations, but rather from rigid mindsets, depleting coal reserves, and the declining demand for coal as more power plants begin shifting to biomass and natural gas as a way to reduce emissions.

Whether or not one believes that stronger regulations on CO2 emissions and other coal-related pollutants are inevitable, there is one simple reality brought up by Byrd that residents of Appalachian coal-mining states cannot afford to ignore. America’s demand for Appalachian coal is going nowhere but down, not because of the EPA or environmentalists, but because the high cost of accessing dwindling reserves make it uncompetitive with alternative sources of energy (see graph below for historic and projected future trends).

Given that declining demand is the bottleneck for Appalachian coal production, as evidenced by the fact that existing mines are operating at historically low capacity levels, there is really nothing that the EPA or environmental groups are doing in regard to mining rules, or even could do, that would actually decrease coal production in the short term. For instance, consider the chart below, which summarizes information from the Federal Reserve about the productive capacity of already permitted and active coal mines and the level at which that capacity is being utilized.

This highlights the absurdity of blaming the EPA policies on mine permitting, or environmental groups working to end mountaintop removal, for recent declines in coal production. In fact, the capacity of the U.S. fleet of active coal mines has never been higher, while the proportion of that capacity that is actually being utilized has never been lower. I’ve written elsewhere about how this simple fact undercuts every argument made by coal industry supporters about how the EPA is threatening jobs, electricity supply, and national security. But the point here is that the efforts of unions to eliminate permitting bottlenecks accomplishes nothing to increase production or mining jobs.

Environmentalists, on the other hand, also have some embracing of the future to do. First, while most acknowledge that coal use won’t go away overnight, we haven’t really taken to heart the simple fact that this means coal will have to be mined somewhere. Supporting responsible mining practices can be as important as opposing irresponsible ones, and it could go a long w
ay toward building bridges with unions and other potential allies. There has thus far been little enthusiasm among environmental advocates to wade into those difficult and controversial waters, and I’m as guilty as any for avoiding the issue, but perhaps the time has come for us to take a position on what responsible mining practices are, as well as irresponsible ones, and work together with unions to ensure that it’s the most worker-friendly and environmentally responsible mines that get permitted to meet the declining demand for coal.

As mentioned previously, we’d also be wise to acknowledge the fact that production of metallurgical coal in Appalachia is likely to increase in the next few years, even as overall production continues its precipitous decline. Is it really impossible to embrace that as a good thing, even as we work to improve the waste disposal practices of coal processing plants and reduce the damage caused by underground longwall mines?

3. Communicate regularly and collaborate when possible

I speak for many of my colleagues in saying we yearn for the day when we’re not in the midst of a pitched battle to prevent the immediate destruction of dozens of mountains and streams and can begin working on legislation that we half-jokingly call the “Central Appalachian Economic Diversification and Jobs Bonanza Act.” We spoke many times with Byrd’s office about developing and introducing some such bill, and had he lived a little longer, one may actually have been introduced by now. But it’s pointless to work on an economic development and diversification bill that lacks the support of local workers and elected officials. Collaborating to promote worker retraining programs and federal and state incentives to bring new industries to Appalachia would be an excellent way for labor unions and environmental and community advocacy groups to work together to accomplish common goals.

But the most important thing, especially as we get into the next election cycle, is to ensure that the UMWA and environmental groups don’t unnecessarily work at cross-purposes and thus inadvertently play into the hands of the anti-government and anti-union radicals that are working to deepen our nation’s “Deficit Attention and Hypocrisy Disorder.”

This week’s march on Blair Mountain is a timely reminder of just how much organized labor, community advocates, and environmental organizations have in common. And the stark post-November realities that we are facing should provide a lot of incentive to not forget it again.

To take action to help protect Blair Mountain and other mountains and communities threatened by mountaintop-removal coal mining, visit iLoveMountains.org.

In case you haven’t heard, dozens of proposed amendments to the House Budget Bill would strip EPA of funding to update and enforce safeguards for mountaintop-removal mines, coal ash storage ponds, and emissions of hazardous air pollutants from coal-fired power plants. If these amendments are approved, House Republicans would successfully turn back the clock on all of the clean air and clean water safeguards put in place over the past two years and bring back the polluter-friendly rules of the Bush administration.

Photo: Appalachian VoicesThe man overseeing the budget is Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky, whose district is home to more than half of the 500 mountains already destroyed by mountaintop-removal mining in Appalachia. Not only does Rogers’ district lead the nation in mountains destroyed, it also leads the nation in human misery according to the Gallup-Healthways 2009 Well-Being Rankings. Of all 435 Congressional districts in America, Rogers’ district ranked dead last in Gallup’s overall well-being index, which combines information on physical and emotional well-being, life evaluation, work environment, and basic access to government services.

As my Appalachian Voices colleague JW pointed out on the Front Porch Blog, while Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood may be “dead first” in mountaintop removal, his district ranks:

• 435th in life expectancy (dead last)
• 435th in physical health (dead last)
• 435th in overall well-being (dead last)
• 435th in emotional health (dead last)

There could be no clearer indication of where the new House leadership is trying to take the country. What are you going to do to stop them? [Hint: you can start by taking action here].

Photo: iLoveMountains

However, the immediate response of coal industry groups and West Virginia politicians to the news of EPA’s action was a little different this time around. Notably absent was any reference to the so-called “War on Coal,” which had previously been a mainstay of the coal industry’s talking points. Instead, every West Virginia politician and coal industry trade group that issued a response to EPA’s action appeared to be reading from the same script — a new one focused on broad national implications of EPA’s action for all U.S. industries, not just coal. Apparently we are now to believe that the opposition of West Virginia politicians to any and all regulations protecting streams from obliteration by coal companies is not about any provincial concerns or pressure from the most powerful industry in their district, but about “regulatory certainty,” national energy supply, national security, and the unemployment rate.

The new narrative about overbearing federal regulators stifling the economy and threatening national security fits nicely with the ideological persuasions of many new members of Congress. They would seem to be the primary target of the coal industry’s new PR strategy, the goal of which is clearly to convince Congress to rein in the EPA and prevent the agency from promulgating new rules or enforcing existing ones. And the centerpiece of this new narrative is EPA’s veto of the Spruce permit, which, it is increasingly apparent, was part of the coal industry’s game plan all along.

That’s not to downplay the importance of EPA’s action or the courage shown by Lisa Jackson in following through on the veto in the face of intense industry opposition and the growing potential for Congressional backlash. Moreover, environmental and community advocates were rightly enthusiastic about EPA’s veto, as the alternative would have signaled a major retreat in EPA’s crack-down on mountaintop-removal permitting. But EPA’s documents and public statements make clear that the agency was bending over backwards in an attempt to negotiate a settlement with the company and they stated specifically that it was the company’s unwillingness to contemplate any alternative mine plans that left the agency with no choice but to veto the permit. Amazingly, the agency even went so far as to hire its own mine engineering firm to develop an alternative mine plan that would have cut the stream impacts in half while producing the same amount of coal at about the same cost.

But Arch Coal didn’t want to negotiate with the EPA to reduce the impacts of the Spruce permit, despite the fact that Arch successfully negotiated a settlement with the EPA and won approval for their Pine Creek mountaintop-removal mine permit just last summer. Spruce was different because it was the most controversial permitting action the agency has taken in regard to mountaintop removal, representing just the 13th time EPA has ever issued such a veto and one of the few times it has overturned a Clean Water Act permit that had been previously approved by the Army Corps of Engineers. It’s the type of action that makes the anti-regulatory teahadists in Congress apoplectic and, given the industry’s campaign to incite Congress to roll back the administration’s new guidances and rules on mountaintop-removal mining, an EPA veto of the Spruce permit provided the perfect opportunity to broaden their coalition.

So Appalachian coal companies have successfully chosen their battlefield. Now they have to convince enough legislators — and their constituents — that EPA’s crackdown on mountaintop-removal permits is of national importance and demands action from Congress. Given the lack of evidence for any of the arguments they are using to “nationalize” their fight with EPA, convincing members of Congress outside of Appalachia should still be a tall order. In order to do my part in making that order as tall as possible, I’ve prepared a quick summary of the arguments mountaintop-removal supporters are using to nationalize their issue and a synopsis of why each of their talking points is deceptive.

The top priority of coal companies and their supporters in Congress is to portray EPA’s denial of some permits as a threat to the entire U.S. coal industry and to all industries that rely on “Dredge and Fill” permits under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.

When it released its draft guidance on Appalachian surface mining in April 2010, EPA specifically made clear that its provisions on 404 permitting are “applicable only to those discharges associated with Appalachian surface mining operations.” That, however, didn’t stop the National Mining Association from issuing this  statement immediately after EPA’s announcement of the Spruce veto:

The implications could be staggering, reaching all areas of the U.S. economy including but not limited to the agriculture, home building, mining, transportation and energy sectors.

If EPA is allowed to revoke this permit, every similarly valid … permit held by any entity — businesses, public works agencies and individual citizens — will be in increased regulatory limbo and potentially subject to the same unilateral, after-the-fact revocation.

Sounds pretty scary until you learn that EPA also addressed the “regulatory limbo” issue directly in its response to public comments on the Spruce permit. Specifically, EPA stated:

… the Spruce No. 1 Mine represents a unique set of circumstances. As is clear from the summary in the Final Determination, the project has a long history of controversy, including multiple lawsuits. During the course of that controversy, EPA frequently voiced concerns … EPA recognizes that instances where the need to act occurs after a permit has issued are legal, but should be rare.

Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette paraphrased a final piece of the industry’s “regulatory over-reach” argument as going something like:

The Spruce Mine got every approval needed every step of the way, cleared every regulatory hurdle required, and was ready to go — but for the meddling of those anti-coal lefties from the Obama administration.

Then, in the remainder of his must-read piece on the Coal Tattoo blog, Ken goes on to eviscerate the argument. Ken concludes that, “When politicians say the Spruce Mine has crossed every hurdle, they’re just wrong.”

Other than these new additions to the “regulatory over-reach” argument, the rest of the talking points supporting the coal industry’s new narrative will sound familiar to anyone who knows the coal industry or West Virginia politics. In a nutshell, the argument is that forcing coal companies to stop destroying streams will cost jobs, threaten national security, and may very well cau
se us all to freeze in the dark without electricity. These arguments all share one fatal flaw, however: they are belied by the fact that the amount of coal production in the U.S. is not limited by the ability of mining companies to obtain permits, but by the low (and decreasing) demand for coal.

According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. coal mining industry was operating at an anemic 75 percent of its production capacity in 2009, down from 85 percent in 2008. That low capacity utilization is the result of a huge drop in demand for coal as well as competition from a burgeoning supply of natural gas. To put the current controversy in perspective, the 2.7 million tons of coal that the Spruce mine would have produced annually represents less than 1 percent of the unused production capacity at already-permitted U.S. mines. Moreover, the EIA’s recently released 2011 Annual Energy Outlook projects that coal demand will not return to 2008 levels for the next 15 years. In the meantime, there are plenty of other mining companies that would be happy to take up any available market share, which helps explain why the Spruce backlash is only coming from West Virginia politicians and not from western or midwestern coal state legislators.

Below is a summary of EIA’s data on coal mine capacity utilization, and here is a link to the actual data:

Even if a government agency or Congress went so far as to shut down every single surface coal mine in Central Appalachia, the average capacity utilization of existing U.S. mines would only need to increase from 75 to 82 percent to replace that lost production. Thus, the argument that EPA restrictions on mountaintop-removal permits threaten our energy supply and national security has no basis in fact whatsoever. As in, like, none.

Similarly, EPA’s stricter enforcement of laws impacting mountaintop-removal mining would have no impact on the national unemployment rate even if the agency really was out to destroy jobs and the economy, as those in the coal industry frequently contend. Because there is insufficient demand for all of the coal that U.S. companies could produce, jobs created to mine coal in one location come at the expense of jobs that would have been created or retained at other mines. It’s not like permitting a mine suddenly creates new demand for the coal it will produce.

Despite what must be heroic efforts of West Virginia politicians to deliver these new arguments with a straight face, it’s local politics, not national security, that is driving their actions. Unfortunately for West Virginians, this focus on false controversies comes at the expense of addressing the very real need to diversify the economy of Central Appalachia. That need has little if anything to do with the EPA, but is primarily the result of an irreversible decline in Central Appalachian coal reserves. As Arch Coal’s CEO Steve Leer explained to a group of utility executives at a conference last September:

We see [Powder River Basin coal] flowing in to replace the decline in Central Appachia. That decline is inevitable — we can debate the speed of it, the shape of the curve, but the last decade would tell you that decline is inevitable … The permitting issues and the regulatory issues simply accelerate that, but its driven by the reserves.

It’s also important to point out that mountaintop removal employs fewer miners than traditional mining techniques and is favored by mining companies specifically because it saves money by replacing miners with machines. As a result, if coal production at a new mountaintop-removal mine displaces production at a nearby underground mine, as it almost certainly would given the low demand for coal (undergound mines in Central Appalachia are operating at just 68 percent of their capacity), the number of jobs in the local area will actually decrease. In fact, that is exactly what has been happening in Appalachia in recent decades as coal mining has shifted from traditional underground mining techniques to the ruthlessly efficient process of mountaintop removal.

Despite a mountain of evidence that mountaintop removal is destroying the economy, environment, and communities of Appalachia, the agenda of West Virginia’s politicians continues to be driven by local politics, which is dominated by the coal industry. Right now, preventing EPA from enforcing regulations on mountaintop removal is at the top of their agenda, but they’ll need to convince a whole lot of members of Congress to join their cause in order to be successful.

A roll-back to Bush-era regulations (or lack thereof) on mountaintop removal is a very real risk and preventing it can only happen if people across the country contact their representatives and make their voices heard. West Virginia has a powerful Congressional delegation, but it’s not as influential as constituents, when it comes to the majority of legislators that are not beholden to the coal industry. That’s where you come in. If you haven’t joined the movement to stop mountaintop removal, now is the time you’re needed most. Please sign up on iLoveMountains.org and make your voice heard.

Cross-Posted with the Front Porch Blog

Yesterday, the EPA issued their long-awaited proposal for new rules on how to regulate the disposal and storage of coal combustion waste (CCW), the byproduct of coal-fired power plants.

Since December of 2008, when more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash spilled into the Emory River from a breached impoundment at the TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant, environmental and industry groups have been waiting with tense anticipation to see how the Administration will approach regulating this highly toxic waste.

As it turns out, they’re still waiting. The EPA actually issued two proposals which, as James Bruggers of the Louisville Courier-Journal reported, can be simply (though far from completely) summarized as follows:

One approach would eventually phase out coal ash storage ponds. The other would would allow ash ponds, but only if they have plastic liners.

The EPA will decide which of those approaches to adopt following a 90-day public comment period that began yesterday. While EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson heralded the action as “the first-ever national rules to assure the safe management and disposal of coal ash,” reporters like Bruggers and Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette saw EPA’s announcement as more of a “punt.”

Environmental groups had a mixed reaction, expressing enthusiasm for the EPA’s overall 563-page analysis, which, despite Jackson’s apparent ambivalence, provides enormously compelling scientific evidence that should favor the more stringent proposal for regulating CCW under hazardous waste provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. But groups also expressed some frustration at the Obama Administration’s unwillingness to follow the EPA’s analysis to its logical conclusion.

But whichever path the EPA ultimately chooses, Big Coal scores thanks to an issue that was entirely excluded from the scope of both proposals: the virtually unregulated practice of dumping CCW into abandoned mines.

To mix a metaphor, in the great 90-day EPA Coal Ash Bowl that began with a punt, the environmental and public health team is down a star player and Big Coal has the ball on the 50 yard line. It ain’t over, but it’s gonna be a rough game.

Dumping coal ash waste into abandoned mines- “Beneficial” for whom?

The industry backlash against any regulation of CCW disposal has long centered on the issue of “beneficial use,” which typically implies using CCW to manufacture wallboard and other construction materials.

According to its promoters, minefilling is a “beneficial use” because CCW is alkaline and, at least the theory goes, dumping it into abandoned mines will neutralize the acidic mine drainage from active and abandoned mines.

The problem with this theory is that there really isn’t any good science to back it up. A study on the water quality impacts of minefilling published by the Clean Air Taskforce in 2007 provided an excellent test of how “beneficial” the dumping of CCW into mine pits actually is. As explained in a more recent and comprehensive report by Earthjustice:

…in two-thirds of all the mines studied, the introduction of coal combustion waste resulted in more severe, long-term water quality contamination than had ever existed at these sites from the mining operation itself. Furthermore, as a practical matter, dumping large quantities of CCW directly into water tables in highly fractured sites under massive quantities of mine overburden makes the prospect of cleaning up resulting contamination far more daunting than halting leakages from conventional landfills and ash ponds.

The pressure on the administration from industry to not designate CCW as a hazardous waste was intense because of the stigma it would put on the use of CCW for “beneficial use” purposes. The unprecedented extent of that pressure from the coal industry was underscored in a letter to the White House signed by 239 public interest organizations from across the country in April. According to the letter:

Industry groups that oppose mandatory federal standards have had nearly 30 meetings with OMB [Office of Management and Budget] on this rule – more than ever before on any single topic. These groups continue to present unfounded claims of power plant closures and exaggerated cost estimates as “fact,” thereby fomenting widespread but unwarranted fear of EPA regulations.

Wait… The coal industry presented exaggerated cost estimates to foment unwarranted fear of EPA regulations? Well I never!

That pressure was clearly effective in that, even if EPA chooses to regulate CCW under the hazardous waste provisions, it will not be labeled “hazardous” so as to avoid the dangerous connotations implied by the label.

But the industry pressure was equally effective in taking regulatory control of minefilling out of the hands of EPA scientists, who are no doubt well aware of the bad science underlying the practice and who are generally very serious about their job of protecting public health. In fact, the EPA already weighed in on the issue:

We believe that certain minefilling practices have the potential to degrade, rather than improve, existing groundwater quality and can pose a threat to human health and the environment.

It’s statements like this that apparently disqualified the EPA from regulating minefilling, which instead will be subject to a subsequent rule-making process headed up by the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM). No timeframe was mentioned for when that rule-making would be initiated.

Putting OSM in charge of developing minefilling regulations, even with input from the EPA, is a huge victory for polluters for a number of reasons. First, the OSM is led by Joseph Pizarchik, nick-named “Coal Ash Joe” by community organizations in Pennsylvania for his unwavering support of minefilling when he was director of the Bureau of Mining and Reclamation in that state. Second, the “scientists” at OSM are a very different breed than those at the EPA.

OSM scientists are generally trained in “reclamation science” at one of the big mine engineering programs at schools like West Virginia University and Virginia Tech. The fundamental premise of reclamation science can be summed up in a statement from Dink Shackleford, past executive director of the Virginia Mining Association, who often said: “We have a chance to improve on God’s creation.” The science of mining and reclamation starts with a fundamental premise that must not be questioned- that no matter how toxic the
pollution, how much mountain we blast away, that we can engineer nature back to as “good as new” or even better.

Viewed through this distorted lens, replacing the remarkably diverse and productive Appalachian hardwood forests with a barren plain covered in exotic grasses dotted with a few pines becomes an ecological benefit because it “improves forestry;” burying the headwaters of streams in millions of tons of mine waste is an ecological benefit because it “helps regulate stream flow;” and the virtually unregulated dumping of mine waste into abandoned mines is a “beneficial use” of coal ash.

There is a lot at stake for the coal industry in how minefilling is regulated because, according to the Earthjustice report, the cost of disposal in minefills is 89-95% less than the cost of disposal in engineered landfills. Also according to Earthjustice, about 25 million tons of CCW – 20% of total annual production – is disposed of in abandoned mines. While the EPA estimates that minefilling accounts for just 7% of CCW disposal, Earthjustice explains that the discrepancy is because, “industry and state regulators are hiding CCW dumping in mines behind the labels ‘beneficial use, or ‘recycling.’”

This minefilling loophole will become all the more important as EPA rules make regulated disposal of CCW more expensive. As the financial incentives for utilities to exploit this loophole become stronger, the pressure on the Obama Administration to delay action on minefilling, or to implement weak regulations, will become even more intense. Given that current regulations in most states for CCS minefilling are considerably weaker than regulations on disposal of household garbage, minefilling could quickly become the predominant method for CCW disposal.

How Does Minefilling Affect Health and the Environment?

The lede and photo from a story in the Miami Herald from November, 2009, helps put the health hazards associated with coal ash into perspective:

“When I was pregnant, I was dizzy, vomiting and could barely walk,” said Maximiliano’s mother, Anajai Calcano, 20. “My tooth cracked and fell out. Then my baby was born like that, without arms. Nothing like that had ever happened here before.”

By “before,” Calcano means before a U.S. power company’s coal ash arrived at a nearby port, sitting there for more than two years.

The story goes on to tell how citizens of Arroyo Barril in the Dominican Republican are suing a Virginia-based energy company for a variety of health problems they say resulted from the illegal disposal of coal ash on the shore of the town. The phrase “health problems” hardly does justice to the godawful deformities found in children born of mothers who had abnormally high levels of arsenic in their blood, one of many toxic metals associated with coal ash. Those “health problems” ranged from cranial deformities to missing limbs to organs outside their bodies.

The situation in Arroyo Barril is an extreme example, but it illustrates the general problem of toxic metal contamination of both air and water near coal ash disposal sites. The composition of coal ash includes a high concentration of toxic metals found in coal including arsenic, selenium, chromium, lead and thallium. While conventional disposal of CCW in wet impoundments has had demonstrable impacts on water quality, the practice of minefilling makes the problem of groundwater contamination far worse. According to the Earthjustice report:

The unique geologic characteristics of mines maximizes the risk of contamination from coal ash dumping. Mining breaks up solid rock layers into small pieces, called spoil. Compared to the flow through undisturbed rock, water easily and quickly infiltrates spoil that has been dumped back into the mined-out pits. Fractures from blasting become underground channels that allow groundwater to flow rapidly offsite. Because mines usually excavate aquifers (underground sources of water), the spoil fills up with groundwater. Unlike engineered landfills, which are lined with impervious membranes (clay or synthetic) and above water tables by law, coal ash dumped into mine pits continually leaches its toxic metals and other contaminants into the water that flows through and eventually leaves the site.

There are many cases where water contamination has already been found, according to the Clean Air Taskforce study of 15 minefilling operations in Pennsylvania.

So what’s next?

To be fair to the administration, the EPA specifically referenced a 2006 report on minefilling from the National Academy of Sciences as one of the documents that should guide the rule-making on minefilling. The recommendations of that report, as summarized by Earthjustice, include:

• Generators should pursue safe reuse of coal combustion waste ash before minefilling;
• Disposal sites must be investigated to determine the quality and location of groundwater, groundwater flow paths, the potential for coal ash to react with minerals or groundwater, etc.;
• Coal ash must be kept out of groundwater;
• Monitoring must be designed to detect movement of coal combustion waste contaminants;
• Deeds must record and fully disclose that coal combustion waste was disposed at the mine site;
• Bonds must be adequate to clean up any groundwater damaged by coal combustion waste disposal;
• Public input must be solicited in the development of national regulations and permits issued pursuant to those regulations.

If all of those recommendations were turned into regulations, the problems associated with minefilling would be largely alleviated. But the success of industry in stripping the EPA of regulatory oversight of minefilling provides little confidence that the administration will ignore that pressure when it comes to developing regulations on minefilling.  

An even greater concern is that the industry will successfully delay rule-making on minefilling for another decade, the way they were able to delay disposal regulations for years until the TVA disaster woke people up to the hazards of unregulated coal ash storage. If their delay tactics are successful, the financial advantages of minefilling will make it the predominant method of coal ash disposal within a matter of years.

And if the momentum generated by the TVA disaster to regulate coal ash disposal is lost, it’s terrifying to think what the next disaster will be that would be needed to motivate agencies to action in the face of enormous industry pressure. As Lisa Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice who has tracked coal ash issues for nearly a decade, told the media in January:

Minefilling coal ash is a slow-motion and invisible counterpart to the TVA catastrophe. There, the destruction was unleashed in a matter of minutes. For communities with water poisoned by the country’s hundreds of coal ash mine dumps, the damage has been gradual and largely unseen, but it also presents a grave threat.

People in coal mining regions have suffered pollution of their water and air for decades, and with the EPA finally beginning to crack down on mountaintop removal mining and the disposal of mine waste into streams, what a
tragic irony it would be if pollution from valley fills was replaced by even greater pollution from minefills. That’s the way it’s headed, and it’s going to take the involvement of thousands of Americans to counter the coal industry’s powerful pressure to keep regulations weak or nonexistent.

This is no time to sit on the sidelines – there are 89 days in the EPA’s Coal Ash Bowl, and your help is needed now

[UPDATE: The link to take action above, "your help is needed now," is not yet set up by the EPA - I will update again as soon as the EPA gets it straightened out]