Bush EPA Guts Mountaintop Removal Rule
Speaking of miners and mining abuses, via Pine View farm, the Bush Administration’s EPA (an oxymoron if there ever was one) has decided to allow coal companies to bury streams under the rocks leftover from mining:
The 1983 rule prohibited dumping the fill from mountaintop removal mining within 100 feet of streams. In practice, the government hadn’t been enforcing the rule. Government figures show that 535 miles of streams were buried or diverted from 2001 to 2005, more than half of them in the mountains of Appalachia. Along with the loss of the streams has been an increase of erosion and flooding.
The 11th hour change before President George W. Bush leaves office would eliminate a tool that citizens groups have used in lawsuits to keep mining waste out of streams. Mining companies had been pushing for the change for years….
The new rule says the buffer zone around streams would not apply to the disposal of rocks, dirt and sludge from mining. It would allow companies to get a permit for the disposal as long as they show on a case-by-case basis that they are trying to minimize the waste.
Carl Shoupe, 62, of Benham, Ky., said mining already had buried many streams and he and others worried that the rule change would lead to more losses.
“They’re taking our water away. They’re taking our mountains away,” said Shoupe, a former underground coal miner disabled in a roof fall. “We ain’t got all the water resources that we used to have up here.”
The Bush Administration and anyone who support it are shit in my book. they shopuldn’t be shunned so much as they should be hauled off and shot in a public square, and then gibbeted like the pirates they are.
December 7th, 2008 at 6:00 am
Yes, exactly like Captain Kidd, And now, Scissorfight.
December 7th, 2008 at 6:01 am
Yes, exactly like Captain Kidd. And now, Scissorfight