Permit switch, (federal agency) secrecy ended (mountaintop removal) mine challenge

[UpInArms]

Source: West Virginia Gazette

Their legal efforts are being thwarted by a federal agency’s secrecy, and — in this case — by a coal company’s strategy of shifting its permit requests to evade judicial review, according to court testimony and government records.

The strategy generates last-minute court fights that pit jobs against the environment, and keep legal challenges to agency permit approvals from being heard, environmentalists say.

“There was collusion by the corps and the company to keep this permit from being challenged,” said Joe Lovett, a lawyer for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Coal River Mountain Watch and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

<snip>

Two valley fills would bury more than two miles of streams. The largest, called Valley Fill 3, would stretch the length of more than 25 football fields.

Read more: http://www.wvgazette.com/webtools/print/News/2007052610

[Morgana LaFey]

1. Bastards

I'm so sick of corporatist thugs and the politicians who collude with them. May they all burn in hell, starting soon.