In Appalachia, that means blowing the tops off mountains to get at the coal seams inside — a process that cuts company costs, but also ravages neighboring communities, poisoning wells and waterways, contaminating air, killing off wildlife and flooding nearby homes. Leading scientists say the effects are irreversible.

This week, a coalition of Appalachian environmentalists launched a campaign they hope will mitigate the disconnect between the electricity Americans use and the devastating processes that keep it so cheap, unveiling a national TV ad that could bring mountaintop removal into living rooms nationwide. The idea is simple: If consumers knew they were contributing to the destruction of the country’s oldest mountains, perhaps they would demand an end to the practice.

For effect, the ad borrows from one of the most famous commercials in the history of television: Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 “Daisy Girl” spot, in which a young girl plucking flower petals looks up to see a nuclear explosion in the distance. (In the MTR version, of course, the nuclear blast is replaced by the elimination of an Appalachian peak.)

“These are the stakes,” the narrator says. “We can allow the land, water and people of Appalachia to be sacrificed. Or end mountaintop removal coal mining.”

If the explosions aren’t enough to captivate interest, the coalition has brought on Ashley Judd, a longtime MTR critic, as the narrator.

At a West Virginia hearing yesterday on the EPA’s controversial proposal to veto the permit for the largest mountaintop removal mine in the state’s history, hundreds of industry supporters — including Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) — blasted the agency for threatening jobs in the region. They’re claiming that the proposal to veto Arch Coal’s Spruce Mine puts politics above science — an ironic argument considering that there are clear signs that evidence-based decision-making is returning to the EPA after eight years in the wilderness of the Bush administration.

The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. reports:

Supporters of the permit complained that EPA was wrong to step in after a mining permit was already issued, and that such an unusual step means no permit ever issued is safe from being later rescinded.

“EPA wants to take the permit away for what seem like political reasons, not scientific reasons,” said John McDaniel, a top Arch Coal engineer who worked on the Spruce Mine permit for more than a decade.

Rahall weighed in at the gathering as well. “Pursuing this course will have a chilling effect on the coal industry in West Virginia and the Appalachian region,” Rahall said, according to Ward.

“It sends a message to investors that no permit is ever assured and that money they might be willing to put into similar coal mining operations and coal jobs is nothing more than a high-risk bet,” Rahall said.

Spike Maynard, a former state Supreme Court Justice (and close friend of the industry) who’s challenging Rahall in November, was also on hand to rip the EPA’s veto proposal.

“The EPA has changed the rules mid-stream on our miners, and I don’t see how anyone could think that is fair.”

Funny that there were no similar complaints from industry supporters when the Bush White House changed the rules mid-stream on coal miners (see here and here).

Of course, those changes made it easier to blow up the mountains.

In other words, the lawmakers are blasting the Environmental Protection Agency for trying to protect the environment.

“While the EPA conducts an unnecessary re-examination of the mining permitting process under the guise of environmental stewardship, the troubling reality is that the EPA’s unsolicited policy changes are aimed solely at the coal industry and more specifically, Appalachian coal,” Reps. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) wrote Monday in an op-ed in Roll Call.

Unilaterally implementing some of the most sweeping regulatory changes in recent history, the EPA is supplanting well-established, Congressionally justified water quality programs in six Appalachian states and running roughshod over commonly agreed upon principles and practices.

It’s tough to know how the lawmakers would define “recent history” here, but evidently they don’t wish to go back too far. Not to 2002, for example, when the Bush administration unilaterally reclassified mining “waste” as mining “fill,” thereby allowing companies to fill streams more easily. And not to 2008, when the Bush White House gutted a 25-year-old rule prohibiting the disposal of mining debris within 100 feet of streams.

Here’s how The Washington Post described the 2002 change:

The “fill rule,” as the May 2002 rule change is now known, is a case study of how the Bush administration has attempted to reshape environmental policy in the face of fierce opposition from environmentalists, citizens groups and political opponents. Rather than proposing broad changes or drafting new legislation, administration officials often have taken existing regulations and made subtle tweaks that carry large consequences.

And last year, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar pointed out the reasoning behind the 2008 “stream-buffer-zone” change when he noted that it “allows coal mine operators to dump mountaintop fill into streambeds if it’s found to be the cheapest and most convenient disposal option.”

But company expense and convenience, Salazar said in proposing to abandon Bush’s rule, shouldn’t be the only considerations when issuing permits.

We must responsibly develop our coal supplies to help us achieve energy independence, but we cannot do so without appropriately assessing the impact such development might have on local communities and natural habitat and the species it supports.

Whether they can succeed in the face of industry opposition — opposition evidenced by today’s Rogers-Capitol op-ed — is another question.

Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Chad Barker says 18-year-old EmmaKate Martin and 23-year-old Ben Bryant were charged with trespassing, conspiracy, obstruction and littering.

He says they left garbage near their platform over the road in Julian.

The irony of the last charge certainly won’t be lost on Appalachian environmentalists and community groups, who’ve been screaming for decades about the polluting effects of mountaintop removal, mostly to deaf ears.

In a report out today, several environmental groups rank nine of the biggest players on Wall Street based on their stated policies toward mountaintop removal coal mining, a process in which companies blast away Appalachian peaks to access the coal seams held inside. All told, since the start of 2008, the nine banks have provided nearly $4 billion in loans and bonds to companies involved in mountaintop mining operations.

The worst offenders? PNC, GE Capitol Corp, JP Morgan Chase and UBS, which all got Fs, according to the analysis conducted by the Sierra Club, the Rainforest Action Network and BankTrack.

The reasons?

Well, PNC has bankrolled about half of all MTR mining since the start of 2008, the groups found, charging the company with a “total failure to take environmental risks into account in its lending practices.”

JPMorgan Chase and UBS both have environmental policies, but neither mentions MTR, the report says. And GE Capitol Corp has no environmental policy at all, the environmentalists found.

At the other end of the spectrum, Credit Suisse ranked best with an A-. Bank officials said they “explicitly do not finance the extraction of coal in a mountain top removal setting,” though their public policy doesn’t mention the practice, the report notes.

Other banks have policies that are more nuanced (veiled?). Bank of America, for example, says that it “will phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal.” That’s a good first step, environmentalists argue, but not as complete as eliminating financing for companies practicing MTR at all. They gave BoA a C.

The other companies were Wells Fargo (B), Morgan Stanley (C) and Citigroup (C-).

The environmental groups said they’ll be watching for further developments.

“When it comes to protecting America’s mountains and clean drinking water, we don’t grade on a curve,” Amanda Starbuck of the Rainforest Action Network said in a statement unveiling the report. “When banks stop funding mountaintop removal they will move to the head of the class.”

“West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it,” he wrote at the time.

Today, the 92-year-old Byrd takes those sentiments a giant step further, ripping into the industry for a failure to consider the detrimental effects that mining has on the local environment and the folks who live there — the same sentiment that environmentalists and community activists have been voicing for decades, usually to deaf ears.

“The monolithic power of industry should never dominate our politics to the detriment of local communities,” he wrote in an op-ed featured in the local press. He was referring not only to the practice of mountaintop removal, but the absence of concern for miner safety that’s been the focus of great interest since 29 miners were killed in Montcoal, W.Va., exactly a month ago.

Byrd goes so far as to threaten irresponsible companies with extinction.

A single miner’s life is certainly worth the expense and effort required to enhance safety. West Virginia has some of the highest quality coal in the world, and mining it should be considered a privilege, not a right.

Any company that establishes a pattern of negligence resulting in injuries and death should be replaced by a company that conducts business more responsibly. No doubt many energy companies are keen for a chance to produce West Virginia coal. (Emphasis mine.)

The target here, of course, is Massey Energy — for reasons that become clearer each day. Not only does the Virginia-based coal giant own the mine where last month’s Montcoal blast occurred, but more and more Massey employees — both active and former — are coming forward with horror stories about the safety policies of the company.

But there’s more. Byrd then takes on the industry over mountaintop removal, a practice in which companies blast the tops off of mountains to reach the coal seams inside. In the process, the excess soil, rock and other debris are pushed into adjacent valleys, many of which contain the headwater streams for larger bodies of water below.

“The industry of coal must also respect the land that yields the coal, as well as the people who live on the land,” Byrd wrote. “If the process of mining destroys nearby wells and foundations, if blasting and digging and relocating streams unearths harmful elements and releases them into the environment causing illness and death, that process should be halted and the resulting hazards to the community abated.”

In short, Byrd ends, the old adage is wrong: Coal is not West Virginia’s most valuable asset. Its people are.

The [EPA's] guidance for approving mining permits, based on these new scientific studies, will help control the damage caused by mountaintop removal mining. But the science shows us that if we are to truly protect our mountains, streams and the people who depend on them, we must bring the practice of mountaintop removal mining to an end.

Last year, Alexander and Cardin introduced legislation that would classify mining debris as a pollutant, which would force coal companies to truck their mining waste to off-site dumping grounds — something the industry claims would make mountaintop removal economically unfeasible (which, of course, is the whole point of the bill).

Last June, Cardin staged a hearing on the issue, the first of its kind in nearly a decade. At the time, the Maryland Democrat vowed to hold another, though none has yet been planned. The offices of both Cardin and Alexander are closed today for the Easter holiday.

Conveniently, Alexander has a bill that would do just that. The legislation, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), would redefine mining waste as a pollutant, thus barring companies from dumping debris into valleys below their mountaintop projects. The idea is that if it becomes too expensive to truck the debris off-site, then companies will stop blowing up mountains altogether.

“The new EPA guidelines are useful in stopping some inappropriate coal mining in Appalachia but Congress still needs to pass the Cardin-Alexander legislation that would effectively end mountaintop removal mining,” Alexander said in a statement issued Thursday. “By mountaintop removal, we mean blowing the tops off of mountains and dumping the waste in streams.”

Such statements put Alexander at odds with a number of Appalachian lawmakers, who view any new environmental protections in coal country as a threat to jobs in the region. But there’s good reason why Alexander has adopted his position. Tennessee is home to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, by far the most visited national park in the country. Last year, nearly 9.5 million people visited the Great Smoky, compared to 4.3 million visitors to the Grand Canyon, which ranks second.

Considering those tourism numbers, Tennessee’s lawmakers have no interest in wrecking the same mountains that are drawing those people in. Indeed, they’ve discovered a way to create sustainable local jobs without poisoning their waters and communities.

“Coal is an essential part of our energy future,” Alexander said, ”but it is not necessary to destroy our mountaintops in order to have enough coal to meet our needs.”

The Spruce No. 1 Mine — a 2,300-acre behemoth in southern West Virginia — was approved by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2007. But environmentalists quickly filed suit to block the project, which would fill six Appalachian valleys with 110 cubic yards of mining waste, burying seven miles of headwater streams in the process.

Under an agreement with the environmentalist plaintiffs, mining in one section of Spruce No. 1 was allowed to proceed despite the suit. That section — in the Seng Camp Creek drainage area — involves filling one valley.

EPA’s decision today doesn’t affect that agreement or block current mining around Seng Camp Creek, an agency spokesperson said today.

EPA will publish its proposed restrictions in the Federal Register April 2. The public will then have 60 days to comment on the changes.

A mountaintop coal mine in West Virginia (Rick Eglinton/Toronto Star/ZUMA Press)

In a show that the Obama administration is serious about putting the teeth back into the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency today jump-started a process that could kill one of the largest mountaintop coal mining operations ever allowed in Appalachia. The decision — which is already being attacked by powerful coal-country Democrats — marks the first time in the EPA’s history that it has invoked its CWA authority to question the legitimacy of a permitted project.

[Environment1]Mountaintop removal refers to the process of blowing the tops off of mountains to uncover the seams of coal inside. The soil, rock, trees and other debris are then pushed into adjacent valleys, often burying tiny streams representing the headwaters of larger rivers below.

West Virginia’s Spruce No. 1 Mine, approved under the Bush administration, would devour 2,278 acres of wooded mountains in southern Logan County. The operation would fill six Appalachian valleys with 110 million cubic yards of debris, burying more than seven miles of headwater streams over the next 15 years.

Most of the project has been stalled in recent years by a series of lawsuits filed by community activists. But the EPA under the Obama administration has also taken a great interest in the project. Today they took that interest a step further, issuing a “proposed determination” that could lead to restrictions on the extent of the mining — or a veto of the permit altogether.

Among the EPA’s concerns surrounding Spruce No. 1, officials said the mine “will cause adverse impacts to drinking water, native aquatic and water-dependent communities in the Spruce Fork watershed.” Runoff from the project is likely to include selenium and other pollutants, which will “adversely affect the naturally occurring aquatic communities.” All told, the mine will result in “the cumulative loss of water quality, aquatic systems, and forest resources.”

That the EPA has the authority to stop such a project is not in question. The Clean Water Act empowers the agency to restrict or prevent dumping when the debris “will have an unacceptable adverse effect on municipal water supplies, shellfish beds and fishery areas (including spawning and breeding areas), wildlife, or recreational areas.” But laws are only as good as their enforcement, and EPA officials under the Bush administration spent eight years looking the other way as permit after permit was approved for mountaintop removal mines.

The reason is clear. The coal industry is a juggernaut of influence on Capitol Hill. And its defenders were quick on Friday to blast the EPA’s intervention as a threat to jobs in one of the most destitute nooks of the country. The National Mining Association, for example, argued that the EPA’s decision “adds further uncertainty for jobs and economic security throughout Appalachia.”

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) weighed in as well, calling it “wrong and unfair for the EPA to change the rules for a permit that is already active.”

Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.V.), the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee who represents Logan County, agreed, calling the EPA’s move “an unprecedented, unjustified and undeserved decision.”

“The owners of the Spruce Mine worked in good faith over the course of many years with State and Federal permitting agencies, including the EPA, and the permit was issued after the conclusion of a full environmental impact statement,” Rahall said. “To come back now and pull the rug out from under this mining operation is unconscionable.”

He’s right about one thing; the move is unprecedented. Under the Clean Water Act, the Army Corps of Engineers makes most permit decisions, but the EPA can step in to delay pending permits — or veto existing ones — if the agency has reason to believe the disposal sites will harm water supplies or ecosystems. EPA has used its CWA veto authority just 12 times since 1972, the agency claims, and never before has it done so for a project that was already permitted.

EPA officials defended their decision Friday, arguing that the agency is simply fulfilling its obligations under the CWA. “We must prevent the significant and irreversible damage that comes from mining pollution — and the damage from this project would be irreversible,” Shawn Garvin , EPA regional administrator for the Mid-Atlantic, said in a statement. “EPA has a duty under the law to protect water quality and safeguard the people who rely on these waters for drinking, fishing and swimming.”

Environmentalists were quick to throw their support behind the move as well. Ed Hopkins, director of environmental quality at the Sierra Club, said the news is indication that evidence-based decision-making is returning to the EPA after eight years in the wilderness under the Bush administration. “The best available science tells us that proposed mines like the massive Spruce Mine would pollute waterways, destroy mountains and devastate communities,” Hopkins said in a statement.

The EPA’s proposed determination will be published in the Federal Register on April 2, with a 60-day public comment period to follow.

“We hope that the agency follows through on this recommendation,” Hopkins said.