Monday, October 19, 2009
Hobet 21 (photo: amountainjourney.wordpress.com)
Representing the largest mountaintop removal operation in West Virginia’s history, the Spruce No. 1 coal mine project came to a halt this week after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) vetoed a Clean Water Act permit. EPA officials had warned the mine’s owner, Arch Coal Inc., and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to find a way to reduce the environmental impacts of the proposed project, or else.
“EPA is taking this action because it is concerned about the magnitude, scale, and severity of the direct, indirect, and cumulative adverse environmental and water quality impacts associated with this project,” declared the agency in a prepared statement. “The Spruce Mine as currently configured would bury more than seven miles of streams.”
Democratic Governor Joe Manchin and mining industry leaders were not happy with the decision. Among environmentalists, the news concerning Spruce represented only a partial victory, because EPA agreed just the day before to allow Patriot Coal to expand its huge Hobet 21 complex (a.k.a. Corridor G) along the Boone-Lincoln County line.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Huge MTR News: EPA Moves to Veto Spruce Mine Permit (by Ken Ward Jr., The Charleston Gazette)
Spruce No. 1 Surface Mine Permit Memo (Environmental Protection Agency)
Mining the Mountains (by John McQuaid, Smithsonian Magazine)
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