Mountaintop-mining foes appeal to senators -- Backstreet Boy's appearance causes some controversy

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By James R. Carroll jcarroll@courier-journal.com The Courier-Journal Kentuckian Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys addressed a Senate subcommittee. WASHINGTON -- Critics of mountaintop coal mining complained to Congress yesterday that dumping rocks and dirt into valleys and streams below the mines hurts the environment, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman said he'll offer legislation to try to limit the practice. Joined by the Backstreet Boys' Kevin Richardson, a native Kentuckian, environmentalists urged a subcommittee headed by Lieberman, D-Conn., to block a Bush administration plan that they charged would make it easier for coal companies to dump such ''fill'' material. ''When I move back home to Kentucky to raise a family on my farm, I want my kids to be able to fish and swim in the same places I grew up,'' said Richardson, a pop singer whose appearance prompted the subcommittee's ranking Republican member, George Voinovich of Ohio, to skip the hearing over concerns about his expertise on the subject. ''I ask you,'' Richardson continued, ''as our leaders, to look beyond the political clout of the coal lobby and do what's right for the forgotten Appalachian region.'' Micky McCoy of Inez, Ky., where millions of gallons of coal waste spilled from a collapsed impoundment in October 2000, asked the lawmakers to ''wage war against the environmental terrorism going on in my land.'' ''I am Appalachia. I, and every living thing within me, am dying,'' he said. Carol Raulston, senior vice president for the National Mining Association, disputed suggestions that the industry is insensitive to environmental concerns. Raulston, interviewed after the hearing, said fills from mountaintop mining are carefully constructed to strict engineering standards and environmental impacts are carefully monitored. The mining also has proved to be an economic development boost for communities, she said. ''If you have any kind of economic activity where you need level ground, you must have soils removed and a place to put it,'' Raulston said. Valleys are the safest places to put the rocks and dirt, she said. Fill operations have been a source of conflict in mountaintop mining for years, but the battle intensified after a May 3 agreement between the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency to use the same definitions for regulating fill material. Before the agreement, the Corps' definition of fill prohibited streams and rivers from being used for dumping industrial waste. To be considered fill and not waste under the Corps' rules, dirt and rocks from mountaintop mining could be dumped in valleys if it could be shown to have a purpose, such as land development. But the Corps changed its regulations to match the EPA's, which contain no requirement that fill have a purpose. Any dirt and rocks that create dry land or raise the bottom of a body of water would be considered fill and thus legal under the new rules. Environmentalists were outraged, saying the Bush administration opened the door to more mountaintop mining and made it easier for coal companies to do whatever they want with debris from mining. Even before the Corps-EPA agreement, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth and other environmental groups had filed lawsuits challenging fill dumping. On May 8, a federal judge in West Virginia blocked the Corps from issuing permits for fill operations. ''Congress did not . . . authorize cheap waste disposal when it passed the Clean Water Act,'' wrote U.S. District Judge Charles H. Haden II, who also invalidated the new fill rule. EPA and Corps officials yesterday defended the rule, saying they were simply trying to ''harmonize'' their definitions to eliminate confusion. ''We're not here to defend mountaintop mining practices,'' said Benjamin Grumbles, EPA deputy assistant administrator. But Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's subcommittee on clean air, climate change and wetlands, said the two agencies ''legitimized a practice that is in fact harmful to our nation's waterways.'' Lieberman said he'll introduce a bill reasserting that Congress never intended the 1972 Clean Water Act to be used to allow more dumping of fill. ''I think the agencies overstepped their authority'' in permitting so many fill operations, he said. Similar legislation already has been introduced in the House by Reps. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., and Christopher Shays, R-Conn. At a news conference after yesterday's hearing, coalfield residents from Kentucky and West Virginia told of devastation of their land and homes and indifference from mining companies. They brought videotapes and photographs of scarred and barren mountains, blocked valleys and damaged property. Every time it rains, said retired coal miner Lucious Thompson of McRoberts in Letcher County, the water funnels near his house because of the fill. In addition, he said, constant blasting from mining operations has opened a large crack in the foundation of his house. ''We must do something to stop this, and we must do it now,'' Thompson said. ''There's other ways of dealing with this waste besides burying the streams and burying people's hopes,'' said Teri Blanton of Berea, Ky. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer and president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, said, ''If the American people knew what was going on in these West Virginia and Kentucky landscapes, there would be a revolution.'' Richardson, 30, a Lexington native who grew up on the edge of the Daniel Boone National Forest, and Kennedy recently flew over Kentucky and West Virginia to view mining operations. Critics estimate that fills from mountaintop mining have buried 1,500 miles of streams in the two states. Richardson's appearance generated a flap between Lieberman and Voinovich, who said Richardson brought no expertise to the subject and his celebrity was being exploited. Neither Voinovich nor the other two GOP members of the panel attended the hearing. Richardson, whose grandfather was a coal miner, called the dispute ''sad.'' ''It's unfortunate he's not here,'' Richardson said. ''I could have taught him something. He could have learned something from me. I could have learned something from him.'' Richardson is the founder of an environmental group called Just Within Reach, and last month helped establish a water quality monitoring group called Kentucky Riverkeeper, the 90th such organization under Kennedy's Waterkeeper Alliance. Traveling without an entourage, Richardson conceded his fame helped draw attention to mountaintop mining but said he appeared ''as a concerned citizen.'' Richardson bought a farm two years ago in Fayette County and returns to it often. He said he still visits the summer camp his father once ran and where he worked, located between Irvine and Beattyville.