Bush administration officials paved the way Tuesday to revoke parts of a key water quality rule that environmental groups say could greatly limit mountaintop removal mining if it were properly enforced. Read more about mountaintop removal

The White House and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency signed off on plans by the Interior Department to finalize coal industry-backed changes in a 25-year-old stream protection rule called "the buffer zone rule."

Approval by EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget clears the way for Interior to publish the final rule well before Dec. 19, the deadline for it to take effect in time to make it tough for the Obama administration to repeal.

EPA officials said they added some protections to the final rule, but environmental groups said they have little hope that language will be effective.

"This is a sad day for all people who are thankful for the clear mountain streams and stately summits of the Appalachians," said Joan Mulhern of the environmental group Earthjustice.

Earthjustice and other environmental groups had fought the buffer zone changes, because they hoped the rule might be used in court actions or by the incoming Obama administration as a tool to more strictly regulate mountaintop removal.

Carol Raulston, spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, said her group "has supported clarification of the stream buffer zone rule to help end litigation that has ... jeopardized thousands of mining jobs."

Generally, the buffer zone rule - approved in its current form in 1983 - prohibits mining activities within 100 feet of streams. Coal operators can obtain waivers, but to do so must show that their operations will not cause water quality violations or "adversely affect the water quantity and quality, or other environmental resources of the stream."

OSM wrote the buffer zone rule to implement a congressional mandate in the 1977 strip mine law that the agency "minimize the disturbances to the prevailing hydrologic balance at the mine site and in associated offsite areas and to the quality and quantity of water in surface and groundwater systems both during and after surface mining operations and during reclamation."

In mountaintop removal, coal operators use explosives to blow up mountaintops and uncover valuable, low-sulfur coal reserves. Leftover rock and dirt - the stuff that used to be the mountains - is dumped into nearby hollows, burying streams.

For years, OSM and various state mining agencies allowed these fills by interpreting the buffer zone rule to not apply to the mining waste piles. A government study published in 2003 found that mine operators had buried 724 miles of Appalachian streams between 1985 and 2001.

Bush administration officials paved the way Tuesday to revoke parts of a key water quality rule that environmental groups say could greatly limit mountaintop removal mining if it were properly enforced. Read more about mountaintop removal

The White House and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency signed off on plans by the Interior Department to finalize coal industry-backed changes in a 25-year-old stream protection rule called "the buffer zone rule."

Approval by EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget clears the way for Interior to publish the final rule well before Dec. 19, the deadline for it to take effect in time to make it tough for the Obama administration to repeal.

EPA officials said they added some protections to the final rule, but environmental groups said they have little hope that language will be effective.

"This is a sad day for all people who are thankful for the clear mountain streams and stately summits of the Appalachians," said Joan Mulhern of the environmental group Earthjustice.

Earthjustice and other environmental groups had fought the buffer zone changes, because they hoped the rule might be used in court actions or by the incoming Obama administration as a tool to more strictly regulate mountaintop removal.

Carol Raulston, spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, said her group "has supported clarification of the stream buffer zone rule to help end litigation that has ... jeopardized thousands of mining jobs."

Generally, the buffer zone rule - approved in its current form in 1983 - prohibits mining activities within 100 feet of streams. Coal operators can obtain waivers, but to do so must show that their operations will not cause water quality violations or "adversely affect the water quantity and quality, or other environmental resources of the stream."

OSM wrote the buffer zone rule to implement a congressional mandate in the 1977 strip mine law that the agency "minimize the disturbances to the prevailing hydrologic balance at the mine site and in associated offsite areas and to the quality and quantity of water in surface and groundwater systems both during and after surface mining operations and during reclamation."

In mountaintop removal, coal operators use explosives to blow up mountaintops and uncover valuable, low-sulfur coal reserves. Leftover rock and dirt - the stuff that used to be the mountains - is dumped into nearby hollows, burying streams.

For years, OSM and various state mining agencies allowed these fills by interpreting the buffer zone rule to not apply to the mining waste piles. A government study published in 2003 found that mine operators had buried 724 miles of Appalachian streams between 1985 and 2001.

In 1999, then-U.S. District Judge Charles H. Haden II concluded that the rule did apply to valley fills, a decision Haden said prohibited all fills in perennial and intermittent streams.

On appeal, Haden's decision was overturned on jurisdictional grounds. But the Clinton administration eventually adopted Haden's view of the buffer zone, and once George W. Bush took office, federal regulators and the coal industry pushed to rewrite the rule.

OSM proposed a rule in January 2004, and then delayed finalizing it so agency officials could conduct a more detailed environmental impact review. A final version of that review, made public in October, found that under the OSM rule changes, another 357 miles of Appalachian streams would be buried by mining waste under permits issued between October 2001 and June 2005.

OSM proposes to exempt valley fills and similar waste dumps, such as slurry impoundments, from the 100-foot stream buffer. A companion rule would require coal operators to minimize these fills and consider alternatives for waste disposal.

Greg Peck, chief of staff at the EPA Office of Water, said his agency convinced OSM to put language back in the rule to require mine operators to meet water quality standards to obtain permits for valley fills.

"We are very pleased with the additions that OSM was willing to put into these regulations," Peck said.

Peck said mine operators could make that showing by obtaining Clean Water act "dredge-and-fill" permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

But Joe Lovett, director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, said the corps' permit process wrongly gives mine operators credit for stream "mitigation" projects that U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers has found cannot yet be shown to work.

Also, Lovett said, it's wrong to try to substitute the corps' "dredge-and-fill" permit standard for the stronger restrictions contained in the existing buffer zone rule. To obtain a buffer zone variance, mine operators must show their activity "will not adversely affect" the environment. Companies can get a corps permit as long as they will not cause "significant degradation" of streams.

"Really, the agencies have rendered the buffer zone rule useless," Lovett said.

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 348-1702.