In yesterday's Charleston (WV) Gazette:
An independent science advisory team has issued a draft report that supports the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's conclusion that mountaintop removal is causing serious damage to Appalachian streams.
In a 75-page report, a 15-member panel of scientists from around the country agreed with EPA's conclusion that valley fills are increasing levels of electrical conductivity downstream from mining operations and threatening stream life.
Although mountaintop removal coal mining has been going on for decades, the EPA took its first hard look at the damage caused by mountaintop coal mining after the Obama administration/EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson took over.
Not surprisingly, the EPA and independent review find that dumping mining waste into streams, and toxic runoff from mining waste and mining sites, harms those streams and ecosystem that depends upon them.
For more information on the report and mountaintop removal:
- Review supports EPA science on mining damage, by Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette, 9/30/2010
- The EPA's draft report, A Field-Based Aquatic Life Benchmark for Conductivity in Central Appalachian Streams (h/t Coal Tattoo)
- The independent Science Advisory Board's draft review of EPA's report
- ilovemountains.org
