breaking MTR news - via the Saturday Gazette-Mail

March 23, 2007

Judge blocks mountaintop removal permits (5:56 pm)

Ken Ward Jr. Staff writer

A federal judge late Friday blocked four Massey Energy mountaintop removal mines, in a ruling that could have broad effects on West Virginia's coal industry. U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers ruled that the federal Army Corps of Engineers did not properly review the potential impacts of the four permits. The judge rescinded the permits and sent them back to the corps for a new review. "At a minimum, the corps must examine and then explain how this added destruction of headwaters streams, in view of the significant loss of streams in the watershed, will not result in a significant impact on the environment," Chambers wrote in an 89-page ruling released after business hours on Friday evening. Read more...