Final Determination on Mingo Logan Coal Company! January 13, 2011 Logan County W Virginia

EPA Follows Clean Water Act, Section 404(c) Veto Authority and Discharge of Dredged or Fill Materials (404) US EPA (link to document)

On January 13, 2011, the EPA in conjunction with the President of the United States and the Department of Justice have made a FINAL DETERMINATION in regards to the operating permits once granted to the owners/operators of the Spruce Mine #1 

Spruce Mine #1 operations has been out of compliance since they turned in the information on their permit application. They did not tell all of the toxins and gases and metals they would be pouring into the open waterways of Logan County, West Virginia. 

I heard the Mine-Senator Manchin on WDTV 5. "...absolutely wrong, after going through all this permitting them, process...callous" err Senator, I heard "...no investment". Who cares about the health of my Earth that you are callously making profits on, and the health of your Constituents who have highly toxic water, because when your friends at the mines greased those 404's and 404(c)'s, especially when phone calls are placed to the Environmental State Agency, and heads will roll, if they don't get those permits...

• September 3, 2009. Letter from EPA to the Corps of Engineers who had authority to regulate the waterways. (link to document) 09.03.09
• October 16, 2009 A strongly worded response to Colonel Robert D Peterson, for refusing to act on the EPA's initial request to pull and review the basis of the Permits issued, because EPA findings (attached to the end of this document) test show Spruce Mine #1 has always operated outside of the legal limits of permits, in obeyance of the Clean Water Act, est 1971 (link to document)
• April 2, 2010 Published on the Federal Register. A Proposed Determination - to revoke and veto the 404 and 404(c) permits issued to Spruce Mine #1 (link to document)
• Addendum - References where all information regarding the environmental harm and devastation. Included are the references for every scientific, and medical notation. (link to document) 
• Technical Support Document for all of the harmful, toxic and creepy things done to the waterways adjacent to Spruce Mine #1 (link to document)
• March 26, 2010 EPA-RO3-OW-2009-0985 to withdraw permits for disposal into open waterways(link to document) Between the March 26, 2010, and April 2, 2010 decisions by the EPA, there was one 30-day comment period. Then from April 2 2010, then extended to June 4, 2010, was a 60 day public comment period. As of April 20, 2010, the entire world was focused on the largest known environmental disaster ever. During this time, it was difficult to get the public to respond, but many did.
• March 26, 2010 News Release: WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced its proposal under the Clean Water Act to significantly restrict or prohibit mountain top mining at the Spruce No. 1 surface mine in Logan County, W. Va. Spruce No.1 mine is one of the largest mountaintop removal operations ever proposed in Central Appalachia. The project was permitted in 2007 and subsequently delayed by litigation. The Spruce No. 1 mine would bury over 7 miles of headwater streams, directly impact 2,278 acres of forestland and degrade water quality in streams adjacent to the mine. 
• April 27, 2010, Announces May 18th, 2010, Public Meeting
• May 4th, 2010 Federal Register Notices
• May 27, 2010 Public Comment time extended until June 4, 2010
• July 12, 2010 the time to make a determination was extended until September 24, 2010
• Determination basis, link to documents
• January 13, 2011 FINAL DETERMINATION  This was not a shock, nor sudden move. The environmental degredation has continued since the permits were first issued, they have been warned time and again, to change the way they chose to operate within the same environment we all have to live in.

According to the news sources who are bought and paid for by big energy, it is a joke, how they are whining about jobs and investments. The jobs would end soon anyway, because they have about used up every resource imaginable. The permits were gotten without full disclosure and with the help and support of the Corp of Engineers, who overseas the waterways of West Virginia. It is hard to dismiss the fact that in order to get the oversight agency to comply, they had to be bypassed. It is very difficult to go against such power, concentrated in such small areas. Their reach is enormous, but the destruction of our habitat must stop. Coal power is dirty, and everything done to harvest it is deadly and detrimental to our environment and human health.

To quote one of the documents; the first filing on the federal register...

Applying the lessons of the past, we now know that failure to 

control mining practices has resulted in persistent environmental

degradation in the form of acid mine drainage and other impacts that

cost billions to remedy. While the Surface Mining Control and

Reclamation Act (SMCRA), the CWA, and other laws have put in place

controls addressing some environmental impacts, including acid mine

drainage, recent studies and experience point to new environmental and

health challenges that were largely unconsidered until more recently.

We know the regulatory controls currently in place have not prevented

adverse water quality and aquatic habitat impacts from other surface

mining operations. We also know the same types of impacts as those

anticipated from this project have had previously unforeseen

environmental consequences.

Public health issues surrounding the types of impacts associated

with the Spruce No. 1 project are not well understood. EPA has been

presented with household-specific and anecdotal information that

suggests individual and possibly public surface water and ground water

supplies could be adversely impacted by surface coal mining activities.

In addition, recent published studies directly relate intensity of

surface mining activities within Appalachia to degraded public health

and mortality. EPA has been presented with a petition from a variety of

local stakeholders that outlines many of these concerns and further

relates them to issues of environmental justice.

and refused to change the way they operate, and continued unsafe practices, affecting all of the waterways around them. I will put links to documents that are viewable to the public, showing how toxic the waterways and soil is around Spruce Mine #1. 

• The press, is not saying is the history of non-compliance of strip miners, and mountain-top miners.
• Anyone who could do that to a mountain, does not care about nature. 
• Vetoing of the 404c and 404 permits once issued to Mingo Logan Coal Company, working reclamation of Spruce Mine #1 Surface Mine is due to a long legal battle that Coal money has kept going. Environmental Justice had one victory here on this day.

Thank you Lisa Jackson, and all of the citizens who refused to stop, when the cause seemed impossible.