The EPA has said mountaintop removal mines have a dangerous impact on water quality. (Sierra Club)

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday approved a permit for Coal Mac's Pine Creek No.1 Surface Mine in Logan County, W.Va. The Corps said the mine will impact 14,530 feet of stream.

The permit for Pine Creek has been a point of contention for some environmentalists who believe it to be inconsistent with new Clean Water Act rules announced by the Environmental Protection Agency in April. In June, the EPA recommended the Corps approve the permit despite their new rules.

In an announcement Tuesday, the EPA said the approved permit was changed to meet their new guidelines.

Consistent with the Clean Water Act and the recent EPA guidance on mountain top mining, the Agency’s consultation with the Company and the Corps led to significant changes to the permit that will reduce potential adverse impacts to water quality and avoid significant degradation of the aquatic ecosystems in the Pine Creek watershed. The key changes include reductions to stream impacts, protection of water quality through a strict conductivity level, enhanced mitigation and restoration, and reduction of cumulative impacts.

Members of the environmental group Rainforest Action Network protest during Blankenship's speech at the National Press Club. (Mannie Garcia / RAN)

In a scathing column Sunday, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank ripped Massey Energy's CEO Don Blankenship over blatantly self-serving comments made at the National Press Club last week.

Milbank writes:

If Don Blankenship had any sense of shame, he'd crawl into a mine and hide.

As CEO of Massey Energy, he has presided over a coal company that had thousands of violations in recent years, leading up to the April explosion that killed 29 of his miners. The company now faces a federal criminal investigation into what the government has called negligent and reckless practices.

But Blankenship must have no sense of shame, because he visited the National Press Club last week to complain about "knee-jerk political reactions" to mine deaths and to demand that the Obama administration lighten regulations on his dirty and dangerous company. "We need to let businesses function as businesses," an indignant Blankenship proclaimed. "Corporate business is what built America, in my opinion, and we need to let it thrive by, in a sense, leaving it alone."

• Read Milbanks's full column: Massey Energy's Blankenship: No shame, but plenty of blame
• Watch video of Blankenship's speech: Video: Blankenship Speaks to National Press Club
• Read Who's Minding the Mines? A Look at Massey Energy's Don Blankenship, by A Thousand Little Cuts' Robert Browman

Henry David Thoreau

by Robert Browman
A Thousand Little Cuts

Monday was birthday of the man who wrote, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." That’s noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau.

During his life, Thoreau wrote more than 20 books on a variety of topics, but he is best known for Walden, which he published in 1854. The book chronicles the two years Thoreau spent at his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson’s cabin near Walden Pond near Concord, Mass.

Many see his experiment at Walden Pond as a radical rejection of society in favor of a natural, wilderness life. In reality, Thoreau’s beliefs were more practical and moderate than extreme. The cabin at Walden wasn’t located deep in the wilderness. It was just on the edge of his hometown, not far from his family.

He didn’t entirely reject human society, nor did he completely embrace the wild. He condemned mankind's destruction of nature, and he sought to find what he felt was a proper balance between the natural world and the needs of man.

The Daily Yonder -- a daily source of news, commentary, research, and features about issues facing rural communities -- is currently leading their site with a story by A Thousand Little Cuts team members.

Written by Lead Writer Robert Browman and including images by Director Chad A. Stevens, the story is about the sense of betrayal felt by activists after the EPA seemingly ignored their own guidance and recommended approval of a new mountaintop removal mine permit in West Virginia.

Read the full story by clicking the headline below:

Mountaineers Say EPA Has Backtracked

In April, a turn in the Environmental Protection Agency bouyed Lorelei Scarbro with hope. After many trips to the nation's capitol to oppose mountaintop removal mining, the 54 year old grandmother and coal miner's widow thought the EPA was taking its first steps to abolish the radical coal extraction process that threatens her West Virginia home.

But two weeks ago, the EPA seemingly reversed course. It recommended approval of a major mountaintop removal mine in nearby Logan County, WV, an operation that would level 760 mountain acres, fill three valleys, and destroy more than two miles of streams.

Read the full story on The Daily Yonder.

Activists with Rainforest Action Network protest at EPA headquarters. (RAN)

by Robert Browman
http://thecoalwar.com

Five protesters with the environmental group Rainforest Action Network are currently occupying the lobby of the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., in protest of what they say is a betrayal of a promise made by the agency earlier this year.

On April 1, 2010, the EPA publicly announced stricter Clean Water Act rules intended to drastically limit valley fills, a process by which coal companies dispose of toxic waste from mountaintop removal mines by dumping it into streams and valleys.

Less than two months later, the EPA shocked mountaintop removal opponents by recommending approval of a permit for the Pine Creek Surface Mine in Logan County, W.V. The mine will level 760 acres of forest, fill three valleys and destroy more than two miles of streams.

by Robert Browman
http://thecoalwar.com

When Dr. Rand Paul, Kentucky's Republican nominee for the United States Senate, sat down last fall with a TV interviewer to discuss his political views, he said about mountaintop removal, "I don’t think anybody’s going to be missing a hill or two, here and there.”

After recently gaining media attention as the first candidate endorsed by the Tea Party to win a nomination for a national seat, Paul quickly came under fire for comments he made about civil rights.

Paul's controversial views on energy and coal, however, have received much less attention.

During an October 2009 interview, Paul was asked, "What about mountaintop removal?" He responded:

A pile of toxic coal ash as high as 20-25 feet lays in an inlet approximately one mile from the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston Fossil Plant retention pond after a large coal ash spill in December 2008. The ash pile stretched for two miles along the inlet, which empties into the Emory River. (Brian Stansberry, December 27, 2008.)

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson announced today a proposal to regulate coal ash and its disposal. Jackson said the agency will allow for 90 days of public comment before deciding whether to regulate the material in the hazardous waste section, or the non-hazardous waste section, of the federal Resource Recovery and Conservation Act.

Jackson's announcement comes 16 months after a large ash spill sent 1.1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash into a community and contaminated the Emory River at Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Plant near Knoxville, Tenn.

Coal ash is a toxic waste product from coal-burning power plants which contains hazardous substances such as lead, arsenic, mercury, selenium, boron, zinc, thallium and chromium. It has long been associated with severe human health issues.

From the recent Huffington Post article Even The Cows Have Cancer: EPA Weighs Tougher Regulation of Toxic Coal Ash

Elisa Young says she has lost at least six neighbors to cancer in the last ten years.

"I've lost neighbors to lung cancer who have never smoked," she said. "I've lost them to brain cancer, breast, throat, colon, multiple myeloma, pre-leukemia. When my son, who's in his 20s, came home to visit, he said, 'Mom, is it normal for your mouth to taste like metal?' We pulled over and he coughed until he got sick."

National Public Radio is reporting that Massey Energy is being investigated as part of a criminal probe into bribery and negligence in the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion.

Via NPR:

NPR News has learned that the Mine Safety and Health Administration is one subject of a federal criminal investigation surrounding the explosion of the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia three weeks ago -- a disaster that killed 29 miners. The probe also looks at Massey Energy, the owner of the mine.

Sources familiar with the investigation say the FBI is looking into possible bribery of employees of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency that inspects and regulates mining. The sources say FBI agents are also exploring potential criminal negligence on the part of Massey Energy, the owner of the Upper Big Branch mine.

NRP's story, including updates, is located here:
FBI Probing U.S. Officials And Massey, Owner Of W. Va. Mine Where 29 Died

The Coal War team has reported that some accuse the leadership at Massey Energy putting profit over safety. Read our profile of Massey Energy's controversial CEO:
Who's Minding the Mines? A profile of Massey CEO Don Blankenship

by Robert Browman
http://thecoalwar.com

Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship. (Public Domain)

On April 5, 2010, an explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia killed 29 miners. The incident was the worst coal mining disaster in the United States in forty years.

In the aftermath of the accident, much of the criticism of the company has focused on Massey’s CEO, Don Blankenship.

Opponents have long characterized the 60-year old Blankenship as an unscrupulous coal baron who flouts the law, buys political favor and sacrifices miner and public safety for the sake of profit. In the wake of the Upper Big Branch tragedy, investors and politicians are taking a hard look at Blankenship as well.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who is responsible for the New York State Common Retirement Fund, which holds $14.1 million worth of Massey stock, has called for Blankenship’s resignation. “Massey's cavalier attitude toward risk and callous disregard for the safety of its employees has exacted a horrible cost on dozens of hard-working miners and their loved ones," DiNapoli said.

Blankenship is no stranger to controversy. He is active in West Virginia politics, often employing tactics that ride on the edge of commonly acceptable business practices.

Another study - this one from Than Hitt and Dr. Michael Hendryx - shows a high correlation between coal mining and certain types of cancers. It also outlines what a loss of ecologic integrity can mean for human health. The image below shows a respiratory cancer cluster, focused on southwestern West Virginia.

>>> Visit Appalachian Voices for more information.