When the Environmental Protection Agency began literally dumping on the Clean Water Act more than decade ago by declaring it was all right for mountain-top-removal mining companies to dump their vast debris into the streams and valleys below, rationally thinking Americans had to be amazed at the flagrant violation of a major and properly enshrined environmental protection law. Still, the damage continued, as one mountain top after another was blown to smithereens, and the euphemistically labeled overburden, or spoils, was sent down mountainsides to kill miles and miles of streams, family wells, forest and wildlife habitat, and, in many cases, to drive whole communities out of their homes and valleys.
The purpose of such destruction on such a colossal scale in the Appalachian states whose power structure embraced such mining strategies was abundantly clear. Using powerful explosives to level mountaintops was far cheaper than hiring more mine workers to extract coal from underground mines and properly dispose of the debris.
Mining companies got richer. Their lobbyists to governors and state houses got richer. Public officials got richer campaign donations. And who cared about the future of mountain habitat and valley communities, whose mainly rural residents didn't have a voice in the matter?
The long running legal battle waged by community and environmental advocates to get the EPA to refuse permits for such mines under the standards of the Clean Water Act reached its nadir in 2007, when President George W. Bush's administration, a servant to rapacious mining companies, got the EPA to approve a permit required under the Clean Water Act to authorize Arch Coal Co.'s No. 1 mine in Logan County, W.Va.
The EPA finally reversed its decision in mid-January. It rightly said, at last, that the vast destruction caused by dumping the "spoils" of the mountaintop cover into valley streams was a clear and serious violation of the Clean Water Act.
There should be a chorus to sing Hallelujah for the sanity to recognize the value of our water and other environmental resources and the rights of valley families to their natural land and water. Regrettably, mining companies and their colleagues across many business organizations are up in arms. They claim that the reversal of a permit (wrongly) granted to Arch Coal Co. is nearly sacred, and that the EPA's action will throw the business community into a state of uncertainty over regulatory enforcement by robbing Arch Coal Co., its workers, and the larger but still struggling economy, of jobs.
Their response is as predictable as it is overblown. Enforcement of fair regulation to sustain the Clean Water Act always should have been paramount in this case. Businesses engaged in work that involves clear violations of the Clean Water Act have had fair warning, in years of debate over the consequences of mountaintop removal mining.
Critics of the decision shouldn't attain their goal of upsetting the EPA's decision. Its finding of the undue health and environmental damage of stream destruction rightly reflects the obvious destructive impact of a mining technique that never should have been allowed in the first place.