Federal Coal-Mining Policy Comes Under Fire

Internal government documents show that officials from a variety of agencies unsuccessfully criticized the Bush administration’s effort to let coal miners continue the practice of “mountaintop removal” mining -- the leveling of mountain peaks to extract coal -- in Appalachia.

At issue is a draft environmental impact statement analyzing the effects of the widely practiced technique on streams, wildlife and forests and proposing three approaches for regulation.

Although the administration said all three approaches would improve environmental protections, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the administration’s alternatives to regulate mountaintop removal mining “cannot be interpreted as ensuring any improved environmental protection,” according to a document obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The agency had advocated that one alternative would minimize the impact on streams, fish and wildlife, according to the document, which was released along with others by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, a Washington-based public-interest law firm that submitted the FOIA request.

George S. Dunlop, deputy assistant secretary of the Army, who oversees the Army Corps of Engineers and who worked on the environmental impact statement, said he was shocked that the Fish and Wildlife Service had said the proposals would not improve environmental protection. Dunlop suggested that the criticisms may have reflected input at the staff level or at an early stage of the process.

“I find it astounding that anybody would characterize this current [environmental impact statement] that way,” Dunlop said. “That doesn’t compute with all of our dealings [with Fish and Wildlife] at the level which I was involved.”

In mountaintop removal mining, massive machines take off the tops of mountains, extracting coal and depositing leftover rock in valleys. In the two decades since the practice was first used, 724 miles of streams have been buried and 7% of the forests cut down across Appalachia, according to the draft environmental impact statement.

The government prepared the statement in 1998 as part of a settlement of a lawsuit filed by people who live near mountaintop mining operations in West Virginia. A preliminary draft prepared by the Clinton administration considered limiting such filling of valleys.

But the administration’s document, released in May, introduced no new limitations. Instead, it suggested that the agencies involved better coordinate their efforts and develop better procedures to monitor the effects of mountaintop removal mining.

Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Assn., said the Washington-based trade organization was pleased with the administration’s effort and believes that it will result in less damage to streams and wildlife. Mine operators will have to study the effects of their work more thoroughly, she said.

“Out of that should come environmental improvements,” Raulston said.

But environmental groups and activists in Appalachia strongly criticized the administration’s effort and said the comments released in response to the FOIA request show that the government scientists who studied the problem agree with them.

The administration “eliminated all environmentally protective alternatives from consideration. That’s not scientifically or intellectually honest,” said Jim Hecker, environmental enforcement director at Trial Lawyers for Public Justice. “People within the agencies are very disappointed. Scientists who worked on [the environmental impact statement] were furious that the other options were not considered.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service commented that the administration’s approaches “belie four years of work and accumulated evidence of environmental harm, and would substitute permit process tinkering for meaningful and measurable change,” Hecker said.

An Environmental Protection Agency official in Philadelphia, John Forren, warned that the draft could leave the government “legally vulnerable” and urged the agencies to include “concrete actions that address directly environmental impacts.”

Some officials were concerned that the only difference among the alternatives suggested in the draft was which agencies would be responsible for issuing permits for mines.

Cindy Tibbott, a Fish and Wildlife Service specialist in Pennsylvania, warned that the public would wonder why “all we’ve proposed is alternative locations to house the rubber stamp that issues the permits.”

The documents included a primer for officials responding to possible “hostile” questions from reporters. Included was a possible question about whether Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles was involved in developing the environmental impact statement.

Griles, a former energy lobbyist, has been accused by environmental groups and Democrats in Congress of conflict of interest for seeking outcomes that benefit his former clients.

The documents included a letter from Griles dated Oct. 5, 2001, saying that the Clinton administration draft was inadequate and that a new draft should “focus on centralizing and streamlining coal-mining permitting.” But the communications team is directed in the memo to say that Griles was briefed in early 2001, and other than receiving routine briefing papers “has not been involved in finalizing the document.”