Salazar Seeks to Vacate Bush-Era Mining Rule
By Juliet Eilperin
WASHINGTON D.C. - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar instructed the Justice Department yesterday to seek a court order to overturn a Bush administration regulation allowing mining companies to dump their waste near rivers and streams, calling the regulation “legally defective.”
The announcement, coming on the same day the Environmental Protection Agency said it was taking a second look at a handful of Bush-era rules on air pollution, shows that the Obama administration continues to chip away at its predecessor’s environmental policies.
Some environmentalists, however, were disappointed by Salazar’s move, arguing that more needs to be done and that the federal government has failed to enforce for decades its rule governing mountaintop mining practices.
The ongoing dispute centers on a 1983 law that bars mining
operators from dumping piles of debris — which stem from
blowing off the tops of mountains to get to the coal — within
100 feet of any intermittent or permanent stream if the
material would harm a stream’s water quality or reduce its
flow. Federal and state courts have issued conflicting
interpretations of the law, and widespread dumping continued.
The government estimates that 1,600 miles of streams in
Appalachia have been wiped out since the mid-1980s.
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