We’re making headway in putting an end to the horrible practice known as mountaintop removal (on my personal lifetime “to do” list).
After a horrible decision back in February by the 4th Circuit, the Environmental Protection Agency, after being lobbied by activists, put a moratorium on hundreds of mountaintop removal permits.
Check it:
EPA Halts Hundreds of Mountaintop Mining Permits
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSFiled at 1:54 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency is putting on hold hundreds of mountaintop coal-mining permits until it can evaluate the projects’ impacts on streams and wetlands.
The decision was announced Tuesday by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson. It targets a controversial practice by coal mining companies that dump waste from mountaintop mining into streams and wetlands.
It could delay more than a hundred permits being sought by companies wanting to begin blasting mountaintops to access coal.
The EPA also denied two permits the Army Corps of Engineers was planning to issue that would allow companies to fill thousands of feet of streams with mining waste in West Virginia and Kentucky.
The agency says the projects could damage aquatic resources.