Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.
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His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.
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Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris
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Interview with Vernon Haltom, co-director of Coal River Mountain Watch, conducted by Melinda Tuhus
On Jan. 13, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reversed a permit approved in 2007 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the largest mountaintop removal operation in West Virginia, Arch Coal's Spruce No. 1 site straddling Logan and Mingo Counties in the coal-mining southern region of the state. The agency cited concerns about the potential impact on both the environment and human health.
Mountaintop removal entails using dynamite to literally blow off the tops of mountains to mine, the coal seams underneath, and then dumping tons of waste into valleys below, sometimes covering up headwater streams. Groups opposed to mountaintop removal celebrated this decision, but have opposed some EPA actions that have granted permits for other mining sites. Mountaintop Removal opponents are working for a complete ban on the process.
Coal interests and West Virginia's congressional delegation -- which now includes former Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin, who won the late Sen. Robert Byrd's seat -- are calling for legislation that would rein in the EPA's power to curtail mountaintop removal. And Acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, along with the coal industry, West Virginia legislators and labor unions, organized a rally on Jan. 20 to demonstrate support for coal mining in the state. Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Vernon Haltom, co-director of Coal River Mountain Watch, about the mixed messages in the EPA's rationale for reversing its Arch Coal permit approval.
VERNON HALTAM: There were concerns about the cumulative impact on the streams, the water quality, the vast number of miles -- several miles -- of streams that would be buried, and human health impacts. We're glad they included that information. There's a report that Ken Ward posted today in the Charleston Gazette that would really give you a good look at how easily it could have gone the other way. What the politicians aren't telling people while they're ranting and raving about the EPA is that there's a plan that probably would have met the EPA's approval. It still would have buried more than three miles of streams, but it would have cost the company about 55 cents more per ton of coal to do this other plan. So it's not the bright shining light from the sky that the EPA is suddenly going to start vetoing permits in mountaintop removal. It's just that Arch Coal didn't want to spend 55 cents per ton to go with the other plan.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Some opponents of mountaintop removal were more enthusiastic than you are about the EPA's decision on the Spruce #1 mining site. But you're saying it was a really close call and it's not precedent-setting?
VERNON HALTAM: Well, back in April 2010, the EPA announced the strict guidelines they were going to be using to scrutinize permits, and [EPA Administrator] Lisa Jackson stated at that time that no or very few valley fills would be permitted. The first permit that they applied this guidance to, they did approve. It was the Hobet 45 permit, and it was over three miles of streams that they approved to be buried. We don't see that as an improvement; going from three miles of unburied streams to three miles of buried streams is not an improvement. What happened in that case was that the EPA and the coal company arrived at an agreement based on re-engineered mining plans. And a similar re-engineered mining plan was put forth for the Spruce No. 1 mine. In this case -- that's the one we're talking about -- the coal company did not want to go that route and instead chose to basically throw the game, make it look like the EPA was completely unreasonable, cast them in a bad light, and give ammunition to the various politicians who are clamoring for the EPA to be gutted, essentially.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Vernon Haltom, I went on the Friends of Coal website and saw they're calling for Congress to rein in the EPA. Do you also expect coal interests to file a lawsuit against this decision?
VERNON HALTAM: I think they're probably going to attack it in a couple of ways, possibly in the courts and definitely legislators...legislators from West Virginia, what they amount to is coal industry lobbyists on U.S. taxpayers' payroll. They'll do what they can to try and strip the EPA of whatever powers they have, and in this case it would be stripping them of power to enforce the Clean Water Act. I mean, the Clean Water Act is a U.S. law that applies all over the country. And what they're trying to do is make it very difficult for the EPA to actually enforce, and it could have vast consequences everywhere.
BETWEEN THE LINES: So, what's the next step for those of you opposed to Mountaintop removal?
VERNON HALTAM: We've sent out the word to EPA that we support their decision in this case, and they should take stronger steps, deny all Mountaintop removal permits and abolish the practice. It kills people. We're not talking about salamanders, and minnows and mayflies. We're talking about actual people who breathe the dust clouds, who drink the water, who get flooded out of their homes and get killed in floods. All these things that kill people, and yet the industry wants to maintain that we don't exist.
There's a lawsuit against the EPA based on their April 2010 guidelines that Gov. Manchin filed that the National Mining Association has filed, and I believe the state of Kentucky has filed against the EPA. And Coal River Mountain Watch has intervened in that lawsuit on behalf of the EPA. That's one thing we're doing, trying to stay in the legal loop and intervene when we can. But this rally on Thursday, we're also showing up to have a counter-rally. Acting Gov. Tomblin told people to come and show the EPA the impact of coal on the people of West Virginia. Well, what he meant was the people who draw a paycheck from coal. I don't think he was counting on those of us who suffer negative impacts to show up.
Contact the Coal River Mountain Watch by calling (304) 854-2182 or visit their website at CRMW.net
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