Scale is critical part of highway fills discussion

By PAM KASEY

CHARLESTON (AP) — An important question that comes up in conversations about mountaintop mining valley fills is this: Aren’t they just the same as fills for, say, road construction?

The question has been asked more often recently, as the public comment period on changes to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Nationwide Permit 21 for mountaintop mining operations draws to a close.

Nationwide 21 is a streamlined permit designed for projects with “minimal impact.” The Corps, partly under pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency, is considering prohibiting the use of this “general” permit for mountaintop mining operations, requiring all such projects to undergo more detailed “individual” permit reviews.

Some mining supporters see this as part of an EPA-led attack on coal mining a feeling that grew in September when the agency set aside 79 mountaintop mining permit applications, 23 of them in West Virginia, for more detailed review. What do the agencies say?

When corps staff and regulators are asked whether there’s a difference between mining and highway fills, they take the question apart and address the fill material first.

Mark Taylor, a section chief at the corps Huntington District, does not believe that mining fill itself is more environmentally harmful than highway fill.

“As far as the material makeup of the valley fills themselves, there’s very little difference” between surface mine and highway fills, Taylor said. “The mining companies may actually be regulated a little tighter on that part of it.”

Every site is different, said Desiree Hann, a corps program manager in Washington, D.C. The material that needs to be placed is different for each site.

But surface mine fill in particular is supposed to be clean, Hann said.

“The applicant is required to analyze the characteristics of that overburden,” she said. “Toxic material is required to be separated and not placed in an area that would affect a waterway.”

They both said the big difference between surface mine and highway fills is the scale.

“The King Coal Highway has many, many valley fills, and those valley fills are the same size or maybe even larger than what you would have for a mining project,” Taylor said by way of example. “But we don’t get King Coal highway or (U.S. Route) 119 permit applications in every month. If you added it up, there would be more applications for valley fills for mining than there would be for the other issue, and I think that’s probably why EPA is looking at that.”

Hann addressed scale by comparing other corps permits with Nationwide 21.

“The Nationwide 29 and 39 permits for residential and commercial development have linear thresholds,” she said. “They specifically cannot authorize the burial of more than 300 feet of intermittent or perennial stream or a half acre of wetland then an individual permit review would be required.”

The Nationwide 14 permit for road construction also has specific numeric limits beyond which the individual permit process applies, she said.

But while Nationwide 21 for mining is restricted to projects that have “minimal impacts” after mitigation, that’s as specific as it gets, she said.

William James, a section chief in the corps Nashville District, put it plainly: “There are no limits on Nationwide 21.” An EPA spokeswoman, when asked the same question, expressed concerns about stream health and about scale, but she focused on cumulative impacts.

“Valley fills, from even small mining operations, can fill miles of streams for each mining operation,” wrote spokeswoman Enesta Jones in an e-mailed statement. “Multiply these individual impacts by five, 10 or even more mining projects occurring in a single watershed, the cumulative environmental impacts can be very substantial.”

In some West Virginia watersheds, she wrote, more than half of streams have been filled by mining activities, a cumulative impact she said is rarely seen with other activities.

The agency works with developers of highways and structures to minimize environmental impacts, Jones said, and wants to work with the mining industry, too.

She listed options, such as reducing the size and number of valley fills and relying on mining extraction practices that produce less excess spoil.

Comments at the Nationwide 21 public hearings ranged from “It’ll be the end of coal” to “How can a mountaintop removal operation that buries miles of streams have minimal impact?”

Asked how he would address arguments that the permit is under unfair attack, James said, “I would certainly encourage people that feel that way to avail themselves of the opportunity to send us comments.”

Comments are accepted on the corps Nationwide 21 permit through Oct. 26 . They may be submitted online at www.regulations.gov under docket number COE-2009-0032; or mailed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Attn: CECW-CO / Desiree Hann, 441 G. Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20314.