EPA Announces Major Science Review Of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
September 28th, 2009 | File Under : Coal - Companies - Mining Exploration
The Obama administration is quietly putting together plans for a major new scientific study of the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining.
On Friday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published a notice seeking nominations for scientists to serve on an ad hoc panel to “provide expert advice to the EPA on a draft assessment of the ecological impacts” of mountaintop removal.
The EPA said the agency’s Office of Research and Development is preparing the assessment at the request of officials from the EPA’s Mid-Atlantic regional office in Philadelphia, which oversees regulatory matters in West Virginia.
The ad hoc panel would work under the auspices of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, which provides independent scientific and technical advice, consultation and recommendations to the EPA.
The Obama administration has already promised to take “unprecedented steps” to reduce the damaging environmental impact from mountaintop removal across the Appalachian coalfields.
Unlike other EPA moves on mountaintop removal, though, agency officials on Friday did not issue a news release or other media announcements concerning the science panel. Instead, the announcement was a simple notice published in the Federal Register.
The announcement said, “Recent published scientific information reveals that mountaintop mining and valley-fill operations in Southern Appalachia may be linked to degraded water quality and adverse impacts on in-stream biota.”
It said that EPA regional officials had asked for a scientific assessment to include examinations of loss of headwater streams, downstream water quality and subsequent effects to aquatic life, as well as cumulative ecological impacts.
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