Two environmental organizations filed a federal legal challenge Thursday to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit needed for surface mining on Ison Rock Ridge.
The lawsuit, which uses a valley fill permit as a springboard to challenge the entire regulatory system, follows by a few weeks a letter from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asking the Corps to revoke the permit and take a closer look at the project’s potential environmental impact.
“We believe that mountaintop removal mining should end,” said Aaron Isherwood, an attorney for the Sierra Club, which joined with the Big Stone Gap, Va., -based Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards in filing the lawsuit.
“The United States Environmental Protection Agency has asked the Army Corps to revoke the authorization and use of Nationwide Permit 21 for surface coal mining activities,” Isherwood said. “So in our lawsuit we’re essentially asking for the same relief as the Environmental Protection Agency.”
The Corps of Engineers Norfolk District Commander is “still deliberating” on what to do about the letter, said Gerald Rogers, a spokesman for the Corps. Rogers also said he could not comment on the lawsuit filed Thursday until the Corps had a chance to review it – but a lot of things could change in the near future that affect surface mining.
“Everything that we’re doing locally may be put on hold,” Rogers said. “Just look at what’s being done nationally. The President and his team are thinking about halting everything so they can do a review … so it’s just kind of wait and see.”
Locally, Kathy Selvage, vice president of the Mountain Stewards, said the Corps should revoke the Ison Rock Ridge permit as requested by the EPA – especially with a May 8 deadline approaching for the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy to grant a surface mining permit for the site.
“I think basically it would destroy all the communities that are affected,” Selvage said. “It would destroy them.”
The controversial proposed mine site just outside the Wise County town of Appalachia, Va., was also the subject of a federal lawsuit last year to have logging stopped after watermelon-sized rocks rolled down the slope into a resident’s yard.
Thursday’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia, also calls for the U.S. Office of Surface Mining to investigate what he says is a persistent problem of state regulatory agencies not enforcing the law.
“We think that there’s a real problem with the way that states are enforcing the surface mine laws and our particular claim relates to the failure of the office of surface mining to consult regarding impacts of mining on historic resources that are protected under the natural and historic preservation act,” Isherwood said. “But beyond that, we think that states are not adequately enforcing the surface mining law … and we think that the Office of Surface Mining, the federal government, needs to look into that problem.”
dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701
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