CHARLESTON, W.VA. — Six public hearings across the Appalachian coalfields next week figure to be the latest battleground in the fight over the future of a practice known as mountaintop removal mining.
The environmental community and pro-coal forces say they're pushing for big turnouts at the hearings, which will focus on a streamlined process coal companies have used to obtain permits to fill valleys with material left over from mountaintop removal mines.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is mulling an outright ban on using streamlined or temporary permitting processes for Appalachian surface mines.
Environmental groups want mountaintop removal mining banned as too destructive, while the industry argues it should be allowed to continue the highly efficient method of extracting coal.
The corps says one proposal would bar issuing valley fill permits in the region using the streamlined process, known as nationwide permitting. Coal companies would have to obtain individual permits, which also are under fire. The Environmental Protection Agency has been giving Clean Water Act permits for surface mines closer scrutiny and recently held up 79 applications.
The other proposal would merely suspend the streamlined process while the corps evaluates changes.
Both options stem from a decision by the Obama administration in June to try eliminating the streamlined process as part of a broader effort to curb surface mining in the region.
The Sierra Club, which is organizing carpools to help boost turnout at the hearings, says the corps is on the right track by proposing an outright ban.
"Mountaintop removal has had a devastating impact on local communities, the economy, and our environment, and the nationwide permits should never have been issued," Sierra Club spokeswoman Mary Anne Hitt said in a statement.
Coal industry supporters are pushing for a big turnout too.
At a pro-coal rally in Charleston on Wednesday, attorney Mike Stuart urged some 200 people to attend.
"Coal miners don't want a bailout. They simply want a work permit," Stuart said at the rally put on by the West Virginia Conservative Foundation. "Today, surface mining is under attack. The thousands of jobs we've had for decades are under attack."
National Mining Association spokeswoman Carol Raulston said the industry organization also is pushing supporters to attend the corps' hearings.
"One of the things we have to be mindful of is all these roadblocks and uncertainties make investment in mining less attractive," she said. "We've seen this on the hard rock side, where U.S. hard rock mining has achieved a lower, lower percentage of worldwide investment dollars simply because we have a very unpredictable, protracted permitting process."
The corps hearings are set for Tuesday in Charleston, Pikeville, Ky., and Knoxville, Tenn., and Thursday in Pittsburgh, Cambridge, Ohio, and Big Stone Gap, Va.
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