Appalachia Is Paying Price for White House Rule

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6462-2004Aug16?language=printer

 

>

> washingtonpost.com

>

> Appalachia Is Paying Price for White House Rule

> Change

>

> By Joby Warrick

> Washington Post Staff Writer

> Tuesday, August 17, 2004; Page A01

>

> Last of three articles

>

> BECKLEY, W.Va. -- The coal industry chafes at the

> name -- " mountaintop

> removal " -- but it aptly describes the novel mining

> method that became

> popular in this part of Appalachia in the late

> 1980s. Miners target a

> green peak, scrape it bare of trees and topsoil, and

> then blast away

> layer after layer of rock until the mountaintop is

> gone.

>

> In just over a decade, coal miners used the

> technique to flatten

> hundreds of peaks across a region spanning West

> Virginia, eastern

> Kentucky and Tennessee. Thousands of tons of rocky

> debris were dumped

> into valleys, permanently burying more than 700

> miles of mountain

> streams. By 1999, concerns over the damage to

> waterways triggered a

> backlash of lawsuits and court rulings that slowed

> the industry's growth

> to a trickle.

>

> Today, mountaintop removal is booming again, and the

> practice of dumping

> mining debris into streambeds is explicitly

> protected, thanks to a small

> wording change to federal environmental regulations.

> U.S. officials

> simply reclassified the debris from objectionable

> " waste " to legally

> acceptable " fill. "

>

> The " fill rule, " as the May 2002 rule change is now

> known, is a case

> study of how the Bush administration has attempted

> to reshape

> environmental policy in the face of fierce

> opposition from

> environmentalists, citizens groups and political

> opponents. Rather than

> proposing broad changes or drafting new legislation,

> administration

> officials often have taken existing regulations and

> made subtle tweaks

> that carry large consequences.

>

> read the rest of the article at:

>

>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6462-2004Aug16?language=printer