Court Overturns Ban on Disposal of Mine Waste
From Staff and Wire Reports
A federal appeals court in Charleston has overturned a ruling prohibiting the government from issuing permits to dispose of waste from mountaintop mining operations into streams.
The decision said U.S. District Judge Charles Haden’s ruling last year restricting the Army Corps of Engineers was overly broad.
The mining industry has increasingly relied on the practice of removing mountaintops to expose coal seams, then dumping the excess rock and dirt into nearby valleys, often covering streams.
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