Demanding Closure of W. Va's "Department of Encouraging Pollution"

by Emily Gertz

categories: Activism, Fossil Energy, News, Wilderness, Wildlife & Biodiversity

Published August 11, 2009 @ 09:55AM PT

Related Actions:

• We Don't Need More Dirty Coal! Urge Congress to oppose the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they feature carbon capture technologies.
• Help Save The Cerulean Warbler: Support Senate Bill 696 to stop mountaintop removal coal mining
• Tell Sec. Salazar to to protect streams and rivers in Appalachia

Four protestors were arrested this morning after they chained themselves to the entrance of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), in Charleston. Saying that the state is not properly regulating mountaintop removal mining of coal in the state, they demanded the resignation of DEP secretary Randy Huffman that the agency turn control of key mining-related programs to the federal government. Reportedly dozens of people appeared at the demonstration.

As one local news outlet reports, "The WVDEP simply fails to adequately regulate the coal industry,” said Rock Creek resident Lorelei Scarbro, one of the demonstrators. “When WVDEP Secretary Randy Huffman runs off to lobby the EPA to grant illegal valley fill permits, he’s abdicated his responsibility to the people. Corporate coal influence has become so great inside the WVDEP that he has become a public relations spokesperson for the coal industry instead of an enforcer of mining laws and regulations.”

The Applalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, Coal River Mountain Watch, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, and Sierra Club have filed a petition asking that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as the US Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), take over enforcement of a crucial enviro protection rule, mandating that all mining activities leave a 100 foot buffer zone around both perennial and intermittent streams.

This rule has been in contention for over a decade. Most recently, the Bush administration essentially eliminated the buffer zone mandate, and the Obama administration moved to reverse that rule change. But the administration has yet to state firmly that it will enforce the rule, when it comes to filling nearby valleys with the waste from mountaintop removal mining operations.

According to reporter/blogger Ken Ward Jr. at The Charleston Gazette, "Of course, various administrations over at the WVDEP has always argued that the rule does not apply to valley fill footprints and, if it did, the rule would essentially end all coal mining."

The impacts of climate change and fossil fuel dependence are still abstract to many Americans. Not so in West Virginia, however, where mountaintop-removal mining of coal has created post-apocalyptic landscapes worthy of 1970s sci-fi. Protestors say there have been around a dozen protests this year alone against the destructive mining method, organized by grassroots groups like Mountain Justice, and over 90 arrests for civil disobedience.

Read more:

• Breaking: Coalfield Uprising Grows, More Sit-ins: Will Feds Take Down WVA's Embarrassing DEP? The Huffington Post
• "Protesters chain themselves to DEP building," The Charleston Gazette
• Coal Tattoo blog at The Charleston Gazette
• "Appalachian Uprising continues in fight against Mountaintop Removal," Coal is Dirty blog
• "Protestors Arrested at DEP Headquarters", The State Journal
• "Protest at DEP Ends in Four Arrests," WSAZ News Channel 3