Groups Revive Litigation To Strengthen Mountaintop Mining Waste Rule

摘要

A coalition of environmental groups seeking stricter requirements for the disposal of coal mining waste adjacent to streams is reviving litigation to force the Department of Interior (DOI) to issue revised rules after the department failed to meet deadlines to which it previously agreed. At issue in the litigation is a 2008 rule by DOI's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) that exempts so-called valley fills and other mining waste disposal activities from requirements to protect a 100-foot buffer zone around streams — and EPA's concurrence with the rule. The litigation, Coal River Mountain Watch, et al. v. Ken Salazar and Lisa P. Jackson, has been on hold in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia since 2010, after the Obama administration announced plans to withdraw the 2008 rule and take comment on a new proposed rule.