WVEC Action Alert
November 15, 2006
Below:
No Matter Where You Live, Your Comments Are Needed
Nov. 22 Deadline for Comments on the Spruce No. 1 Final Environmental Impact Statement. For who to write and for comment guidelines, click here. Please read the information below on why you should comment.
Why comment on the Spruce Environmental Impact Statement?
As Julian Martin of the WV Highlands Conservancy (he's an OVEC member, too!) puts it--do it for the Weekleys: "In 1997 Jimmy Weekly walked into Joe Lovett’s law office and asked for help to fight a 3,000 acre mountaintop removal coal mine planned for the hollow where his family had lived for decades. Spruce #1 was to be a continuation of the nearly 9,000 acre Dal-Tex mine that had already destroyed the community of Blair on the other side of Rt. 17 in Logan County.
"The mountains surrounding the Weekly home would be blasted apart and Pigeonroost Branch would be filled from its beginning high in the hills for over a mile, on down to within spitting distance of Jim and Sibbey Weekly’s home. WV Highlands Conservancy joined the Weeklys and five other families whose homes were threatened by other similar mining proposals in the lawsuit titled Bragg v Robertson. Ruling on part of that litigation in 1998, Judge Charles Haden found that the 3,000 acre mine in Pigeonroost hollow would cause significant irreversible damage and that an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) would be necessary before the large fills of the Spruce #1 mine could be allowed."
You are commenting on that study, and guess what, the study is wholly inadequate. All you need to know to file your comments is here.
Nov. 27 Deadline for Comments on the Army Corps of Engineers' Proposed Nationwide Permits for Mining. For who to write and for comment guidelines, click here. Please read the information below on why you should comment.
Why comment on the Corps' Proposed Nationwide Permits
Again, the WV Highlands Conservancy's Julian Martin sums it up: "The Army Corps of Engineers issues permits for filling up valleys with coal waste from mountaintop removal. They use what is called a Nationwide Permit (NWP)."
The Corps uses NWPs to rubber-stamp the vast majority of stream-filling activities associated with coal mining projects, thereby avoiding the detailed analysis and public participation required for individual permits.
The Clean Water Act provides that NWPs can only be used for dredge and fill activities that cause minimal environmental effects, both individually and cumulatively. It is beyond belief that the Corps routinely issues NWPs for mountain top removal valley fills, claiming there is minimal environmental effects from ripping off the tops off mountains and burying valleys with the waste rock and sub-soil. If the effects of the activities are more than minimal, individual permits are required, and those permits can only be issued after site-specific analysis and public comment. There is no site-specific analysis nor public comment allowed when a NWP is issued.
Before it issues a NWP, the Corps is supposed to make a reasoned determination that the cumulative effects of all activities potentially authorized by the NWP will be minimal and will not significantly degrade the environment. Julian, again: "For the Corps to claim that the destruction of 500,000 acres of mountains and 1,000 thousand miles of streams in West Virginia is minimal and does not significantly degrade the environment is crazy." All you need to know to file your comments is here.
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Nov. 16, Thursday, 10AM-11AM Help stop mercury contamination! Rally to pressure the state's largest mercury emitter to switch to mercury-free technology. Location: Rt. 7 near Clarendon, Ohio directly across the Ohio River from PPG's WVa chlorine plant.
For more info, contact Sam Landenwitsch, Oceana, sam@greencorps.org
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