A federal judge in West Virginia today granted a temporary restraining order against a West Virginia mountaintop-removal mining project in response to concerns raised by environmentalists.
U.S. District Judge Robert Chambers stopped the permit hours after the coal mine's owner, Massey Energy Co., announced that the Army Corps of Engineers had issued a permit for its Reylas Surface Mine in Logan County, W.Va. (Greenwire, March 8).
Two environmental groups -- the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy -- filed a complaint about the mountaintop-removal project's potential for burying a stream with debris.
Janet Keating, OVEC's executive director, praised the judge's action. "That's exactly what the judge needed to do," she said in a telephone interview. "We are pretty sure it's not legal. They are filling streams again."
The judge's order stops Massey subsidiary Highland Mining Co. from further action with respect to streambeds, but the company can move forward with a sediment pond, a court clerk said.
The permit issued by the Army Corps allows the company to dump debris into 13,743 linear feet of waterway and authorizes one valley fill and one sediment pond.
U.S. EPA had originally recommended that the Army Corps not grant the permit, but the company modified its plans to accommodate environmental concerns, including reducing the amount of coal it hopes to mine.
"The permit, as authorized, represents the least environmentally damaging practicable alternative while meeting the project's stated purpose and need," the Army Corps said in a release.
Chambers set a hearing for March 22.
