HR 1310: Return of the Clean Water Protection Act

Just over half the electricity generated in the United States comes from burning coal. If you're concerned about climate change (and who wouldn't be?) that figure alone is alarming. However, while it will take big changes nationally to affect the role of coal in our electrical production, there's one change we can make now -- a change that won't reduce the amount of coal we burn, but will greatly reduce the destruction caused in the extraction of that coal.

Just over 5% of our coal production comes through a process called "Mountaintop Removal Mining" or MTR. Mountaintop removal is just what it sounds like. In most areas, when a company mines coal they are required to reclaim the land to a close approximation of its original state. This is called "return to contour," as the final ground has to closely match the topography of the site previous to mining. The reclaimed land has to have the same mix of plant species, the same level of productivity, and streams have to have the same course, volume, and water quality as before mining.

As with any other safety or environmental regulations, there are some companies and some mines that carry through on reclamation better than others. I've seen mines where the companies walked away, leaving pits of acidic water and hills of barren stone streaked with chemical seepage. I've also seen sites done so carefully that onsite greenhouses matched every grass, prairie flower and weed; where boulders were taken away and numbered so they could be put back in their original positions; and where Native American specialists were consulted to make sure that no plants involved in rituals were overlooked. Coal mining is always destructive, but with good planning and follow through, the long term damage can be minimized.

Except for mountaintop removal.

In areas of steep terrain – particularly in the Appalachian Mountains – mines can get permits to practice mining in a very different way. Here they tear the tops off the mountains, stripping away 500', 700', sometimes even 1000' of overburden to get at the coal seam.  Firs the forest is plowed up by bulldozers. Then the bare rock is drilled with hundreds of holes which are filled with an explosive mix of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel (the same material Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma City). Then the mountain is blasted down in explosions, the largest of which rival the energy of nuclear bombs. Finally enormous excavating machines called "draglines" move in to cast the rubble aside and expose the coal. The draglines, aided by an army of smaller assistants, take the pulverized remains of the mountain and they drop in into streams, rivers, and valleys on all sides. When they're finished, they leave it that way.

With MTR, there's no "return to contour," no question that the mountain will be rebuilt, or that hardwood forest and glens ringed with blackberries will be restored. No attempt to unclog the streams or empty the valleys. Instead, it all becomes a moonscape of rubble and ruin.  MTR is the destruction, for all time, of mountains that were hundreds of millions of years in the making, the ruin of some of the nation's most pristine forests, and the elimination of towns and villages that preserve America's unique mountain culture.

Though mountaintop removal only accounts for 5% of the coal mined, the area that is destroyed in the process is vast. Over 400 peaks in the Appalachians have been leveled. By next year, the EPA predicts that we will have carried out this destruction on over 1.4 million acres – an area larger than the state of Delaware. Thousands of miles of rivers have been ruined, and even those far downstream have to live with the pollution that bubbles through the exposed waste.

The good news is that it doesn't have to continue. Not only does MTR account for a small percentage of the nation's coal mining, almost all the coal mined in this manner can be extracted by other, less destructive means. If you're worried that stopping MTR will leave us short of coal, it won't. If you're thinking that Appalachia is an area known for its poverty and chronic high unemployment, and that stopping MTR will cost jobs, stop worrying. The reason companies have been so quick to use MTR isn't because it's necessary, it's because it's cheap. It's cheap because it uses fewer workers, and doesn't require that they hire the many jobs associated with reclamation in other types of mining.

The mountaintop removal problem was supposed to have been solved years ago. The Clean Water Act had rules that strictly limited dumping of debris into flowing streams. If followed, that rule would have stopped most MTR sites before they got started. But judges at the state level often gave rulings that were very favorable to mining companies, and for more than a decade the wording of the Clean Water Act was Interpreted in a way that allowed the EPA to give permits to the most egregious mine plans. In the Bush administration, the rules were relaxed, and there was a goldrush of companies chopping down Appalachia to take advantage of cheap coal. The Obama administration has rolled back some of Bush's midnight rulings that would have removed all restrictions on MTR, but the core problem still remains.

Fortunately, there's a quick fix. In the last congress, New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone introduced H.R. 2169, the Clean Water Protection Act. This extremely brief act is aimed at one thing: explicitly restricting the ability to drop waste into valley streams. No valley fill, no mountaintop removal.

Mountaintop removal coal-mining is one of the most outrageous assaults on our environment you can imagine. The tops of mountains are literally removed using heavy explosives, turning an incredibly diverse hardwood forest into a moonscape. The toxic rubble is then dumped into the river valleys below, burying and polluting headwater streams, which feed into most of the major rivers of the east.

Earlier this year in Congress, I re-introduced H.R. 2169, the Clean Water Protection Act (CWPA).  The CWPA is a simple bill which reverses the Bush Administration’s 2002 decision that the toxic rubble created by mountaintop removal coal-mining can be defined as “fill material,” and dumped into the headwater streams of Appalachia.

Well, the sad news is that, with the end of the 11th Congress back on January 3rd, HR 2169 is no more...

But with the new congress, the CWPA is not only back, it's back with 115 cosponsors right out of the gate.

The bill–HR 1310–was introduced by Reps Frank Pallone (D-NJ), John Yarmuth of (D-KY), and Dave Reichert of (R-WA)

This has me excited enough that I hope you'll forgive a little HTML exuberance.

H. R. 1310: Clean Water Protection Act -- Cosponsors

Abercrombie HI-01 Ackerman NY-05 Andrews NJ-01 Baldwin WI-02 Berman CA-28 Bishop NY-01 Blumenaur OR-03 Braley IA-01 Brown FL-03 Capps CA-23 Capuano MA-08 Carnahan MO-03 Carson IN-07 Chandler KY-06 Christensen US VI Clay MO-01 Cleaver MO-05 Cohen TN-09 Connolly VA-11 Conyers MI-14 Cooper TN-05 Cummings MD-07 Davis IL-07 Davis CA-53 DeFazio OR-04 DeGette CO-02 Delahunt MA-10 DeLauro CT-03 Edwards MD-04 Ellison MN-05 Engel NY-17 Eshoo CA-13 Farr CA-17 Filner CA-51 Frank MA-04 Grijalva AZ-07 Gutierrez IL-04 Hall NY-19 Harman CA-36 Hastings FL-23 Higgins NY-27 Hinchey NY-22 Hirono HI-02 Hodes NH-02 Holt NJ-12 Honda CA-15 Inslee WA-01 Kennedy RI-01 Kildee MI-05 Kilpatrick MI-13 Kirk IL-10 Kucinich OH-10 Langevin RI-02 Lee CA-09 Levin MI-12 Lewis GA-05 Lofgren CA-16 Maloney NY-14 Markey MA-07 McCollum MN-04 McDermott WA-07 McGovern MA-03 McHugh NY-23 McNerney CA-11 Meek FL-17 Miller NC-13 Miller CA-07 Moran VA-08 Murphy CT-05 Murphy PA-08 Nadler NY-08 Neal MA-02 Norton DC-AL Pallone NJ-06 Pasrell NJ-08 Payne NJ-10 Pingree ME-01 Platts PA-19 Polis CO-02 Price NC-04 Rangel NY-15 Reichert WA-08 Rothman NJ-09 Rush IL-01 Ryan OH-17 Sanchez CA-47 Sarbanes MD-03 Schakowsky IL-09 Schiff CA-29 Schwartz PA-13 Serrano NY-16 Sestak PA-07 Shea-Porter NH-01 Sherman CA-27 Shuler NC-11 Sires NJ-13 Slaughter NY-28 Smith WA-09 Smith NJ-04 Stark CA-13 Sutton OH-13 Tauscher CA-10 Tierney MA-06 Tsongas MA-05 Van Hollen MD-08 Velazquez NY-12 Wasserman- Schultz FL-20 Watson CA-33 Waxman CA-30 Weiner NY-09 Wexler FL-19 Wolf VA-10 Woolsey CA-06 Wu OR-01 Yarmuth KY-03

It's terrific to see not only Congressman Pallone still heading up the fight, but names like John Yarmuth and Ben Chandler, both from the state of Kentucky where this issue is of deep concern. Credit is also due to Russ Carnahan, who is sponsoring this bill even though the two largest coal companies in the country are both headquartered in his district. If these guys can get on board, anyone can. And should.

Still, there's something funny about that table (other than my laughable attempt at art). Where are the rest of the Democrats? Do they really want to be left behind when the momentum to finally deal with this egregious issue sweeps this bill on to the Senate and from there to President Obama's desk?

This next week, we're going to find out. We'll get the chance to remind every representative whose name is not on the bill how important this legislation is to us, to Appalachia, and to the country. We're not going to do 30 Days this time, because it's not going to take 30 days. The wind is at our backs on this issue, and now is the time to push it to conclusion, before another mountain falls.