The legislation currently pending before the West Virginia legislature (SB 681) is an embarrassingly poor attempt to address the problems caused by mountaintop removal strip mining. It offers no protection for the people that is not in current law. What is worse, by passing a bill the legislature is able to give the illusion of action while maintaining the status quo.

Much of the bill appears to address damage due to blasting. It creates an Office of Explosives and Blasting. Perhaps it is the legislature’s intention and hope that if it creates a new office it will give the appearance that it has increased the protection available to people. This is not true. Under current law, the Division of Environmental Protection (DEP) is required to "prevent" damage due to blasting. It is not sufficient to allow mining companies to damage property and then pay for it later. The duty is to prevent damage. Armed with current law which absolutely required prevention, the DEP could not or would not do what was necessary to prevent damage due to blasting. The legislative response is to create a new Office of Explosives and Blasting. In other words, the legislature has taken an agency where citizens’ needs are ignored and substituted an office where citizens’ need can be ignored by a specialist in blasting. Only in the legislature could this be called progress.

The bill gives new duties to the development office to address the needs of the coal fields for economic development. Assuring a future for southern West Virginia after the demise of the coal industry is a noble goal, one which we applaud. This bill does not place West Virginia so much as an inch closer to that goal.

Current law required that mountaintop removal mines assure that there be a commercial, industrial, residential, or agricultural post mining land use. Unless one of those land uses is assured post mining, the Division of Environmental Protection is prohibited from issuing a permit. For the twenty years that the law has been in effect, the Division of Environmental Protection has consistently ignored it.

After twenty years during which the agency with the power to deny permits unless they contained a post mining land use that would assist in economic development, the legislature’s solution is to exhort the development office to spend some of its energy in the coal fields of West Virginia. It gives the development office no power to require that the coal industry make any contribution to the economic future of southern West Virginia. There is nothing in this bill that requires the industry that has taken so much from southern West Virginia to do anything to either lessen the impact of mining on southern West Virginia or improve the economic future of southern West Virginia. It is, in other words, the illusion of progress where there is none.

Finally, the bill pretends to address difficulties in what has come to be known as the "mitigation" law that was passed in 1998. The Governor’s Task Force, which was hardly a hotbed of environmental sentiment, recommended repeal of that law. That it is retained in any form only continues what was always a bad practice. Filling streams was always bad policy. The solution is not to make the coal industry pay for the privilege. The solution is to stop doing it. The bill does require more operations to pay for the privilege of destroying streams. Perhaps some consider this progress. The fact that a few more operations will be required to pay for the privilege of destroying West Virginia’s streams does not make this a sensible public policy. L

The WV Organizing Project is different from other organizations. We are a grassroots member-based, member-run group. We work on a variety of issues, which are chosen by our members. We are trying to improve the schools our children attend, and the roads we must drive upon. Our main focus during this Legislative Session has been to improve the blasting laws, to keep people from being blasted out of their homes.

This Legislative Session has not produced the desired laws, despite our good faith efforts. From the beginning of the session, we have requested that the Governor and the Legislature work with us and the coal industry to resolve our concerns in a fair and open manner. This was rejected. Instead, Senate Bill 681 has been created and amended behind closed doors, with only the input of the coal industry and DEP allowed. The amended bill steamrolled through the Senate, in only a couple of hours. This bill did not fully address the needs of the citizens.

The first day that our representatives were allowed to attend a meeting to discuss the second amended version of Senate Bill 681 was March 9. Our seven amendments were presented, and basically rejected. The only thing they did was to add the effects of air blasts and ground vibrations to a study that will take years to complete.

Senate Bill 681 is not any better than current law in many respects, and in fact, some parts of this bill are worse. This bill gives permission for the coal companies to damage people’s homes as long as they pay for it -- if the DEP has written them up for two violations. In addition, the Bill adds another layer of government of the people to deal with . It provides for two more political appointees -- just what the state of West Virginia needs.

It is amazing that an agency that has not been doing its job would be given more jobs to do. If the DEP had been doing its job, we would not be here. We urge the House of Delegates to reject Senate Bill 681 unless it is amended to meet our needs. L

Six prominent citizen and public interest groups called the mountaintop removal bill (SB 681) a hoodwink of the people at a Capitol press conference this afternoon. This bill repeals the controversial stream mitigation acreage passed last year and returns it to 250 acres. The Senate, however, passed the bill without many members seeing it, and the House Judiciary voted on a revised draft handed to them only minutes before.

"By passing this Mountaintop Removal bill the legislature will be giving the illusion of corrective action while, in reality, maintaining the status quo," commented John McFerrin, a member of the governor’s Mountaintop Removal Task Force and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy.

"This bill in its current state is irresponsible treatment of the coal companies, coal miners, the environment, and the citizens living near the coalfields," said Norm Steenstra, executive director of the WV-Citizen Action Group.

"The Legislature has had the opportunity to break the shackles that the coal industry has put on the southern coalfields, instead it has provided coal with the straw that sucks West Virginia dry of its resources, its natural beauty, its heritage, its culture and its future. They have ignored the concerns of the majority of West Virginia citizens who continue to speak out against mountaintop removal and whose opinions are reflected in the polls," remarked Laura Forman with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.

"SB 681 is misnamed. Instead of being called the Mountaintop Removal Bill, a more apt term is the Molehill Bill because it will continue to encourage strip mines to take our precious mountains and cut them down to molehills," said Gary Zuckett with the West Virginia Environmental Council.

"This bill does not address the needs of the people living near the mountaintop removal sites," according to Freda Williams with the West Virginia Organizing Project.

Mike Withers with the West Virginia Rivers Coalition said, "For the state to say that the woodland variance is an approved exemption is wrong. It begs the question -- should the legislature have included these exemptions as part of the mining rule? The bill does not address that issue."

The bill also allows for mine spoil disposal outside of the permit area if the DEP director determines that it will benefit the environment.

"The number of technical issues unaddressed or poorly addressed is staggering," offered Rick Eades, hydrogeologist with the West Virginia Environmental Council.