What happens when you've encouraged mining companies to evade existing law? What happens when you greatly reduce fines, tolerate huge slurry spills, and become inured to such spectacles as a judge vacationing in Monaco on an indicted coal executive's dime? What happens when you make it easy for companies to expand mountaintop removal operations, and acknowledge beforehand that public comments will be ignored? What happens when mine safety officials walk out in the midst of a congressional hearing?
What happens is that companies get the message. This administration doesn't care about the mountains, the environment in general, or the rule of law. And companies then take the next logical step.
In Pike County, Kentucky, Clintwood Elkhorn Mining Company conducted mountaintop removal operations in an area near Fish Trap Lake, destroying the mountaintop and dumping the waste not only into nearby streams, but into Fish Trap Lake itself -- a lake which provides recreation, tourist revenue, and the water supply for the town of Pikeville.
They did all of this without bothering to pick up the required federal Clean Water Act permit.
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