Army Corps of Engineers

The EPA put its promise to protect mountain streams into action today, taking a rare first step toward vetoing a permit for the largest mountaintop mining operation in Appalachia.

The agency has used that authority only 12 times since the Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972. And it has never vetoed a water permit for an already-approved mine.

“That it is necessary in this circumstance to initiate Section 404(c) review reflects the magnitude and scale of anticipated direct, indirect and cumulative adverse environmental impacts associated with this mountaintop removal mining operation,” William Early, acting administrator for EPA Region 3, wrote in a letter today notifying the Army Corps of Engineers of the decision.

Under the Clean Water Act, the Corps issues permits that allow strip mining companies to push their mining debris into adjacent valleys with streams, but the EPA has the power to review those permits and order changes.

If the Spruce No. 1 mine were allowed to continue as planned in Logan County, W.Va., Early writes, it would bury seven miles of streams in the Coal River sub-basin, in a watershed where one-third of the streams have already been degraded by mining activity.