Other Coal Related News

Environmental Groups Request Decision Review
Earthjustice and the Appalachian Center for the Economy & the Environment filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court requesting a review of the recent Fourth Circuit court decision in a controversial mountaintop removal mining case. The lawsuit challenged the Corps’ violation of the Clean Water Act by authorizing permits to fill 23 valleys and 13 miles of mountain streams in southern West Virginia without performing required assessments of the harm caused by burying the streams.

Environmentalists Oppose Pizarchik Nomination
Nominated for the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation Enforcement, Joe Pizarchik, Director of the Bureau of Mining and Reclamation in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, has ignored warnings about coal ash contamination, allowed valley fills of coal waste that have destroyed dozens of miles of streams and has allowed the proliferation of longwall mining, which has devastated homes and destroyed streams.

TVA Spends $43 Million in Roane County, Tenn.
The Tennessee Valley Authority is funding economic development projects at the site of last December’s coal ash disaster, the largest in the country’s history. The money will be spent on projects that do not directly relate to the spill such as improving the county school system and a public relations campaign to promote tourism in the area.

EPA to Issue New Water Discharge Rules by 2012
The rules limit toxic heavy metals that flow into US waterways from coal power plants’ water discharge. Provisions in the Clean Air Act to reduce air pollutants from power plants have resulted in dirtier water produced by the coal plants.