A typical West Virginia stream, and one that doesn't need a buffer zone - for now.

What’s Up With the Stream Buffer Zone Rule?

The original stream protections were put into place in 1983 by President Reagan in a rule called the "stream buffer zone rule."

That rule, which prohibited surface coal mining activities from disturbing areas within 100 feet of streams, promised Appalachians that their vital waters would be protected from industry destruction. But the responsible agencies failed to enforce this rule and instead allowed coal mining companies to bury streams in violation of the rule for many years.

After citizens attempted to enforce the rule, President George W. Bush, in a final favor to the coal industry in his outgoing moments as president, repealed it in a midnight regulation.

For three years, while calling on President Obama to reinstate the rule and fix this Bush-era injustice, Appalachians have continued to endure waste-dumping into their streams, without any protective buffer from extremely harmful mountaintop removal mining operations.

The Obama administration has promised to restore the longstanding stream protections to Appalachia and improve upon this longstanding rule by proposing a new rule, which will be called the "Stream Protection Rule," by 2011, finalizing it in 2012.

A subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee called for the Charleston "hearing" to criticize the Obama administration’s not-yet-proposed Stream Protection Rule.

The real issues that must be addressed by our nation’s leaders are the disastrous and grave health effects and community impacts of mountaintop removal mining and the coal industry’s rampant destruction of Appalachian streams.

Protecting streams with a bright-line buffer is common-sense policy that is supported by sound science. Americans deserve real safeguards from harmful mining waste – and the Office of Surface Mining should do much more to protect local communities.