Enviro Groups Sue the EPA and Dept. of Interior Over Mining Companies' Waste Dumping
The battle against the Bushite EPA, led by the dunderheaded twit, Stephen L. Johnson who lies to Congress with impunity, is being fought by a consortium of environmental organizations that want to stop Bush's eleventh hour corporate gift to mining companies to further pollute streams with poisonous mining waste.
From the Louisville Courier-Journal via CommonDreams: "A coalition of environmental groups including Kentucky Waterways Alliance has sued the Interior Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, seeking to overturn a new rule that will make it easier for mining companies to dump waste rock into streams.
"The revisions, made final Dec. 12, will let mining companies disregard a 100-foot stream buffer zone if they are able to convince regulators that no other option was available and that they had taken steps to minimize harm to the environment.
"Attorneys with Earthjustice, Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, Appalachian Citizens Law Center, Sierra Club and Waterkeeper Alliance filed the legal challenge yesterday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The suit was filed on behalf of the Kentucky environmental group as well as the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, Save Our Cumberland Mountains, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Coal River Mountain Watch and Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.
"If not overturned, the environmental groups from Kentucky, West Virginia or Tennessee said the rule change would lead to more mountaintop removal coal mining. That's the mining practice of using explosives on the tops and sides of mountains to get at underlying coal seams.
" 'The notion that coal mining companies can dump their wastes in streams without degrading them is a fantasy that the Bush administration is now trying to write into law,' said Judith Petersen, executive director of Kentucky Waterways Alliance.
"Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that the federal agencies violated environmental protection standards, failed to consider the cumulative effects of stream loss from mining, and failed to analyze a full range of alternatives, among other allegations."
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