BLACK FRIDAY

On Friday the 13th of Feb. 2009, a-three judge panel from the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned two favorable decisions granted by U.S. District Court Judge Robert C. Chambers in one of our major lawsuits.

"Its not a time to despair, but a time to redouble our efforts and try to get the Obama administration to recognize and act upon the problems here," said Joe Lovett, an attorney with the Appalachian Center for the Economy & the Environment (ACEE).

"We believe the decision is wrong on the law and the science," said Earthjustice attorney Steve Roady.

In September 2005, on behalf of the OVEC, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and Coal River Mountain Watch, attorneys at Earthjustice and ACEE filed this lawsuit challenging the way the Army Corps of Engineers issues permits at several West Virginia mountaintop removal operations.

Reading the Fourth Circuits 2-1 opinion is tortuous. We are instructed to rely on the Corps "best professional judgment," which has already cost Appalachia a minimum of 1,200 miles of smothered streams, water polluted, mountains, forests and the communities supported by them destroyed, habitat gone, gone, gone

"The problem is that the corps and the court are not listening to the scientists," said Jim Hecker, environmental enforcement director for Public Justice, which also represented the citizen groups.

While we consider our options in appealing this decision to the full 4th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court, we will redouble our efforts in organizing and educating the public on the national disgrace that is mountaintop removal. Well amplify our voices in asking the Obama administration to ban this extreme form of coal mining.

Take action now: tinyurl.com/bc2766.

As this went to print, OVEC, Highlands Conservancy and Sierra Club sent a notice of intent to sue the new Hobet 22 mountaintop removal mine in Lincoln and Boone counties for illegally discharging toxic amounts of selenium into streams. Also, OVEC and Highlands just filed a lawsuit dealing with deficiencies in WV DEPs process of evaluating cumulative hydrologic impacts in areas where several different mines are operating.