As Obama and Congress Passed ACES, They Propped Up Coal and Left Lots of Coal-Related Problems

While still on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill (aka "ACES") voting fence last week, Mark Kirk told some news outlets that he feared the climate change bill because his district was coal dependent. From a district full of residential homes, malls, strip malls, big box discount stores, many small technology and service companies and a couple of pharmas, that statement is nonsense. However, I doubt Kirk misspoke. I think he intended the comment just as he said it in an effort to promote his statewide senate campaign while still looking like he cares about his own district.

Kirk isn't wrong about coal in Illinois. There is a significant amount of coal mining in Illinois, although Illinois coal jobs have been dwindling for quite a while now. There are also several coal burning power plants in Illinois like the one near the Little Village neighborhood that is causing some air quality problems for its neighbors..

What Kirk missed is that the climate change bill actually throws tons of money at trying to produce something called "clean coal" that most experts do not believe exists. The bill also allows construction of new coal plants.

What Kirk will never get because he simply does not care, is that coal leaves a huge environmental footprint both in mining for it and in its use as an energy source. One aspect of coal mining that is particularly disturbing is mountain top removal coal mining. This past February, I did some research about this mining technique as part of a legal research project on recent environmental case law. I found that mountain top removal coal mining is destroying the beautiful mountain ranges in Appalachia and pollutes the rivers and streams in the surrounding valleys, waters that are used by the people living in the nearby towns and cities. I also found that the practice is destroying local economies because rather than creating or even preserving coal mining jobs, it is used to replace coal miners. It left me wondering why none of the long-winded republican tirades on the house floor about lost jobs from the climate change bill included a tirade about lost jobs due to mountain top removal coal mining.

Mountain top removal coal mining began in Appalachia in the 1970s as a cheaper, less labor intensive and higher yielding version of conventional strip-mining. The practice has several steps. First, the mountain top forests are clear-cut and the topsoil is removed. Then, explosives are used to blast away from 800 to 1000 feet of mountaintop. Waste dirt and rock called “spoil” is hauled and dumped into nearby valleys. Then, a machine called a dragline digs into the rock and exposes the coal and other machines are used to scoop out the coal.

This isn't the sort of mining that is generally done in Illinois because we don't have topography. However, Illinois tolerates some closely related strip mining and contemplates mountain top removal where appropriate in its mining regulations.

A group called the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition was working to stop mountain top mining in Appalachia by preventing the EPA from issuing the permits for the spoil dumping. Sadly, the Fourth Circuit Court decided a case this past February that allowed further mining without issuance of EPA valley fill permits. To make its ruling, the appellate panel determined that stream segments and sediment ponds were not waters of the United States that require EPA permits, but unitary waste treatment systems excepted from Clean Water Act permit requirements. The mining was allowed to go forward because the ruling left permitting decision making to the Army Corps of Engineers that interpreted its own rules to leave permitting decisions to the states. Basically, these were classified as non-federal projects.

Despite the Fourth Circuit's lack of concern, mountain top removal is very harmful to US waters. The Sierra Club reports that it has destroyed approximately 2,000 miles of streams.

The consequences of mountain top mining can be see in the following videos available on You Tube:
From ilovemountains.org
From a rally in Frankfort

While coal still gets government accolades and dollars, a group led by NASA climate scientist and Columbia University professor, Dr. James Hansen, still works in West Virginia to stop mountain top mining and eventually eliminate the use of coal in the country. Hansen has been frustrated at the minor improvements in Administration's mountain top removal position as Obama compromised to get the votes for the Waxman-Markey bill and was recently arrested with 30 other protesters for stopping traffic while protesting the coal friendly aspects of the climate change bill. Obama had promised to end mountain top removal, but ended up only authorizing more permit scrutiny from the EPA. Then, his EPA approved more permits. I'm wondering how further EPA scrutiny will happen in any event given the Fourth Circuit's recent ruling.