July 11, 2008-- The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has issued a revised section 401 certification for the Corps of Engineers’ programmatic nationwide permits for coal mining. The Corps programmatically reissued NPW 21 for surface coal mining activities in March of 2007. At the same time, two new NWPs for mining activities were promulgated:  NWP 49 for coal remining activities and NWP 50 for underground mining activities. Under section 401 of the Clean Water Act, individual states can certify, deny or certify with conditions any programmatic NWP issued by the Corps.  The comment period on the newly-issued certification of NWPs 21, 49 and 50 closes on August 6, 2008.