'Greens' sue Corps for avoiding ruling that blocked NWP 21

Washington (Platts)--7Dec2004

Environmentalists are asking a West Virginia federal judge to hold the Army
Corps of Engineers in contempt for violating an August court order that
blocked the streamlined permitting of mountaintop removal and valley fills in
southeastern West Virginia, if work had not begun by July 8.
"The Army Corps has sunk to a new low, brazenly disregarding an order from a
federal district court to stop burying streams and start cooperating with the
Clean Water Act," said Daniel Rosenberg, a senior attorney for the Natural
Resources Defense Council. "The Corps has allowed (the coal industry) to
obliterate hundreds of miles of Appalachian waterways, and apparently, a court
order wasn't enough to stop them."
"Plaintiffs are mistaken. As a factual matter, the Corps immediately complied
with the court's July 8, 2004, and Aug. 13, 2004, orders," according to the
Corps' response brief that was filed Tuesday afternoon. The Corps sent notices
of suspension to 73 mining projects, and "those suspensions currently remain
in effect." 
U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin ruled in July the Corps no longer could
approve valley fills through a streamlined process (Nationwide Permit 21),
saying it violated the Clean Water Act. The order resulted in a slowed down,
case-by-case approach. The initial injunction stopped 11 projects, and the
August ruling expanded it to all existing NWP 21 authorizations in the South
District of West Virginia that had not started construction by July 8.
Recently, however, the Corps has allowed coal operators to begin new valley
fills, apparently in violation of the judge's order, environmentalists allege.
However, the Corps' brief notes that "if construction had commenced, the
project can proceed." The Corps says that it is following the judge's orders
and will continue to do so. It inspected all 73 sites and asked each company
to prepare status reports, while the Corps prepared its own reports.

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