Coal mining company busted

The Knoxville News Sentinel has a report today about a local coal mining company that has been cited by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation for mining without a permit or a mitigation plan:

Using expanded powers, state regulators have ordered National Coal Corp. to halt mining part of its Zeb Mountain mine and fined the company up to $173,000 for mining through two streams without first obtaining required water quality permits.

This is particularly good news for Tennessee's environment, because it is the first time the state has used a newly acquired enforcement authority:

The order is also the first use of new powers under granted in the spring by the Tennessee General Assembly to TDEC under an amendment to the state's water quality control act.

"It authorizes the department to issue a stop-work order to a coal mining operation when there has been a violation that has caused pollution of a stream," Leiserson said.

According to the article, the company's lawyers say this is much ado about nothing, and that they have all the proper permits. TDEC disagrees:

According to the order, TDEC has twice rejected National Coal's permit application "because it did not provide adequate detail" about the proposed work.

"While this was pending they went ahead and mined in the area of these two streams," Leiserson said.

TDEC personnel met with National Coal representatives on Aug. 1 in Knoxville about the requirements to obtain the necessary permits. TDEC workers inspected the mine two days later and found the company had mined through the two streams.

See the online article for before and after photos of one of the streams.

This is not the first time National Coal has been in the local news. Last summer, activists protesting mountaintop removal mining showed up at the company's annual shareholder's meeting and the company had some of them arrested. The following month, the same group protested the company's Zeb Mountain project and there were more arrests.

Another, more moderate environmental justice group, Save Our Cumberland Mountains, is engaged in an ongoing struggle to address the environmental problems caused by strip mining and mountaintop removal. A member of the group praised TDEC for using their new authority. Cathy Bird was quoted in the article as saying "I don't care how they do it, as long as they get things fixed. That's been a very discouraging aspect of this thing for all of us."

It's good that Tennessee's mining and conservation laws now have more teeth. It's even better that TDEC is using this new authority to aggressively enforce compliance with state environmental regulations.