[[Take action today! Tell the Obama administration to get serious about protecting Appalachia’s water!]]
This month, researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released a study that shows strong new evidence that mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia is killing fish populations in rivers and streams downstream.
Mountaintop removal is a controversial way to mine coal that involves blowing off the tops of mountains to get to thin seams of coal and dumping the waste in valleys below. This isn’t news to people who have been following the controversy for a long time. In 2010, a group of 13 well-known biologists published a paper in Science, the best scientific journal in the United States, that said:
“Our analyses of current peer-reviewed studies and new water-quality data from WV streams showed that there are serious effects on the environment that can’t be fixed by mitigation practises… Clearly, the ways we are trying to regulate [mountaintop removal mining] now aren’t working.
The authors of the study that came out last week found that the number of fish species and the total number of fish in streams below mountaintop removal mines in West Virginia’s Guyandotte River drainage fell by 50 percent and by two-thirds, respectively. They made this important contribution to science by using strict methods to figure out which kinds of pollution in the water were most likely to have caused these huge drops.
But the study’s most important contribution may be that it shifts the focus from mayflies and other aquatic insects to a much more popular and charismatic organism that is not only important to the way of life of rural people but also supports an Appalachian sportfishing industry worth billions of dollars.
When local reporters talked to people from the industry, they didn’t argue with the science like they usually do. Those who didn’t completely avoid reporters changed the subject quickly to the supposed benefits of removing mountaintops to make more flat land for industrial and commercial development (in a region where less than 10 percent of the more than 1 million acres of mountains that have already been flattened has been used for economic development).
This response is very different from what the coal industry did when science showed that removing mountaintops led to a loss of aquatic insects in the water downstream from mine sites. When the EPA started putting science back into the permitting process in 2009, supporters of the coal industry said things like, “The EPA puts mayflies ahead of jobs” or “Pests over people.”
One might think that the coal industry knows it wouldn’t win a “jobs vs. fish” debate with the 33 million anglers in the United States.
Widespread damage to fish populations could be costly, which is something that politicians in Kentucky and West Virginia take very seriously. According to data [PDF] from the American Sportfishing Association, mountaintop removal creates a lot fewer jobs in the states where it happens than recreational fishing does:
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In fact, sportfishing provides more than 12,000 jobs in Kentucky, which is more than the total number of jobs in coal mining in the state, including all underground and surface miners, workers in coal preparation plants, and office workers in the industry. Also, unlike coal, sportfishing is a growing business in Appalachia. Between 2001 and 2011, it created more than three times as many jobs in West Virginia as it did in 2001.
Even if “jobs vs. fish” were a popular argument, it would be just as false as “pests vs. people.” Both fewer fish and fewer aquatic insects are important signs that the health of an ecosystem, which all living things, including people, depend on, is getting worse. The “ecological indicator” theory fits with the results of dozens of scientific studies published in the last few years. These studies show that communities near mountaintop removal mines have bad health outcomes, such as high rates of cancer, respiratory illness, heart disease, and birth defects, as well as low life expectancies that are similar to those in developing countries like Iran, Syria, El Salvador, and Vietnam.
So, the USGS study is an important part of the debate about mountaintop removal for people who care about fishing, people’s health, or Appalachia’s economy. I think that’s everyone.
It’s also a very timely contribution because the EPA and other federal agencies are currently working on important rules to protect streams. These rules will decide if the pollution that causes fish populations to drop in the way that USGS researchers have seen will be allowed to continue.
The study found that the water downhill from mountaintop removal mines had high levels of two types of pollution: conductivity and selenium. The researchers think that these pollutants could be causing fish populations to go down. Conductivity is a way to measure how much metals and salts are in water, and high levels are dangerous for aquatic life. Selenium has caused grotesque deformities in fish larvae, like fish with both eyes on the same side of their heads or spines that curve in a “S” shape.
Selenium pollution caused this trout to have two heads. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took this picture.
Selenium pollution caused this trout to have two heads. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took this picture.
This study should be a wake-up call for federal regulators, who have been steadily backing away from the Obama administration’s promise to put science at the centre of agency decisions and limit the damage caused by mountaintop removal mining. This backsliding has been especially clear at the EPA’s Region 4 headquarters in Atlanta, which handles Clean Water Act permits for a number of southeastern states, including Kentucky.
Since it was announced by the previous EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, in 2010, enforcement officials in Region 4 have not used the science and recommendations made by the EPA for the guidance on conductivity. Jackson said at the time that the new rules would only let “few, if any, valley fills” happen. Since then, Region 4 has continued to approve valley fills, which are piles of soil and rock that used to be on the mountaintops of Central Appalachia. Last year, a huge new mountaintop removal permit with six valley fills was approved.
Officials in Region 4 also recently voted to lower Kentucky’s standards for chronic selenium levels in streams. This will let the state allow levels high enough to stop some fish from reproducing. Worse, at the federal level, the EPA just put out a draught of a change to its selenium rule for the whole country that will probably be nearly impossible to enforce. That’s a big problem in states like Kentucky, where the powerful coal industry has shown over and over again that rules can’t be enforced without help from citizen groups. Here’s what the Lexington Herald-Leader said about the state’s “failure to oversee a credible water monitoring programme by the coal industry”:
“In some cases, state regulators let the companies go up to three years without sending in the required quarterly reports on water monitoring. In other cases, the companies filed the same very detailed information over and over again without even changing the dates. Because the state had no control at all, it’s impossible to know if the mines broke their water pollution permits or not.
This winter, the Office of Surface Mining plans to release a draught Stream Protection Rule to replace the outdated Stream Buffer Zone rule that was put in place more than 30 years ago. This gives the administration a chance to take real steps to protect Appalachian streams.
All of this shows the Obama administration that if they don’t go all the way to protect the water quality in Appalachia, they’re not helping anyone. When important recreational fish populations, a growing part of the Appalachian economy, and the health of Appalachian people all depend on strong protections for water quality, the president shouldn’t let his willingness to compromise get in the way of science.
Here’s what you can do: Tell President Obama to tell his agencies to come up with a strong Stream Protection Rule that will stop mining near streams and protect people’s health, fish, and Appalachia’s economy. Do something here.
Concerning Matt Wasson
As the Director of Programs for Appalachian Voices, Matt has worked on all parts of the “coal cycle,” from mining, transporting, and burning coal to getting rid of waste from power plants. He is a nationally recognised expert on mountaintop removal coal mining and coal economics. Matt has spoken in front of Congress and is often on expert panels.
The environmental community wants the North Carolina House’s coal ash bill to be changed in big ways. NEXT: A court agrees with the EPA on science-based mountaintop removal permitting.
TAGS: appalachia Appalachian Coal EPA Health Water Watch Kentucky Water Pollution from Removing Mountaintops in West Virginia
One COMMENT
Says: abby chapple July 14, 2014 at 8:16 a.m.
When and where did the two-headed fish show up in West Virginia?