The Kanawha Valley Mining Institute will hold its monthly meeting on Thursday, September 2 beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the Ramada Inn in South Charleston. Liberty Hydrologic Systems, LLC will be sponsoring the meeting with guest speaker Vic Sprouse.
Featured
Featured
FOC Bowl game registration has been sent to Coal Bits e-mail and is rapidly filling up. If you did not receive or need additional information please let us know – sdavison@wvcoal.com.
Friday, September 10th, will be a jam-packed day beginning with an 11 a.m. Brunch co-sponsored by FOC and the Marshall Foundation, followed by a 1 – 2 p.m. fundraiser for Earl Ray Tomblin, 2 – 3 p.m. Board of Directors meeting, 3 – 4 p.m. fundraiser for Shelley Moore Capito, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Super Tail Gate Tent Party and the WVU/Marshall football game beginning at 7 p.m. Hope to see you there!
Featured
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} August 26, 2010 (Charleston, WV) – The West Virginia Coal Association, Citizens for Coal, the Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security (FACES of Coal), as well as several allied citizen and coal advocacy groups, will participate in a press conference and gathering held on September 15 on the grounds of the United States Capitol. The gathering will celebrate the American Coal Miner and the contribution coal and coal mining makes to our nation’s energy security and economic stability. Current regulatory challenges, coupled with ill-informed public opinion and damaging legislation are threatening the viability of coal mining throughout the United States and particularly in West Virginia.
“We plan to highlight the critically important role of the American coal miner and to call on lawmakers and administration officials to discontinue efforts to regulate the coal industry – and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it provides – out of business,” said Chris Hamilton, senior vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association and co-chair of the Mountaintop Mining Coalition. “West Virginia’s congressional delegation understands the importance of coal to our local economies and national energy plan, but many federal legislators and bureaucrats do not.”
Featured
Yesterday the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WV DEP) released its long-awaited interpretative policy and implementation guidance for the state’s narrative water quality standards. The guidance consists of two documents -- the first is a statement of interpretation and justification for how the agency will interpret the narrative standards within the context of the West Virginia Water Pollution Control Act and House Concurrent
Resolution No. 111. The WV Water Pollution Control Act & HCR 111 was unanimously adopted by the Legislature during the 2010 Regular Session to provide specific direction to the agency with respect to interpreting the narrative water quality standards. The second document is an implementation guidance document that describes the monitoring and reporting requirements for coal mining operations that are necessary to assure compliance with the narrative standards and to maintain existing/designated stream uses.
The guidance is intended to address concerns and comments raised by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Clean Water Act Section 402 and Section 404 permitting process that West Virginia does not adequately consider its narrative standards in the review and issuance of Section 402 NPDES permits for the mining industry. The documents released yesterday were also intended to address EPA’s misinterpretation of state narrative water quality standards. EPA has taken the position that a mere shift in the benthic (bug) population below mining operations constitutes a violation of the narrative standards.
The Association’s Environmental-Technical Committee is reviewing the guidance documents and will convene briefing sessions for our General Membership and training sessions for our Associate Membership in the coming weeks.
A copy of the final justification and guidance documents are available from jbostic@wvcoal.com or from WV DEP’s website at www.dep.wv.gov under the permitting section.
Featured
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WV DEP) has filed its proposed 2011 rulemaking packages with the Legislature for consideration by the Rulemaking Review Committee. Among the changes are revisions to the State’s codified Water Quality Standards (47 CSR 2) that would revise the iron standard for trout waters and add a 500 mg/L Total Dissolved Solids drinking water standard. Changes to the Mining and Reclamation Rule (38 CSR 2) include adding provisions that would allow the agency to initiate bond release in lieu of the permit holder. Changes to the Explosives and Blasting Rule (199 CSR 1) would increase the blasting protections for impoundments. The proposed rule revisions must be approved by the Legislature during the 2011 Regular Session before they can be submitted to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (47 CSR 2) and the federal Office of Surface Mining (38 CSR 2, 199 CSR 1) for consideration.
A copy of the proposed changes is available from jbostic@wvcoal.com