Biased Local Paper Misses Important News Stories
Thursday, February 11th, 2010The Bluefield Daily Telegraph has devoted much editorial space to the matter of the EPA holding up for review mining permits in West Virginia. However, one fairly recent news item concerning mining permits was apparently overlooked by the newspaper:
In a January 5, 2010 letter to the Corps of Engineers Huntington office, the EPA declared that it would not object to issuance of a permit for Hobet Mining’s Surface Mine No. 45 in West Virginia, one of the projects had subjected to enhanced review. The review process produced a negotiated agreement in which Hobet agreed to cut the impacts to headwater streams in half (from burying six linear miles to only three).
A news article from 2009 was also seemingly missed by the Telegraph:
On August 10 of that year, the EPA gave the nod for the federal Army Corps of Engineers to issue a Clean Water Act permit for CONSOL Energy Inc.'s Peg Fork Surface Mine near Chattaroy in Mingo County.
So much for the myth the Obama Administration is anti-coal… and these are only two stories, found in about 60 seconds using Google.
Isn't it far better to submit these permits to careful scrutiny, then take action after working diligently with the coal companies to resolve environmental issues, rather than continue to let them indiscriminately befoul our state's drinking water, decimate hundreds of miles of streams, and turn our natural beauty into barren moonscapes?
I emailed this to the paper but doubt it will see publication, for the simple fact that it doesn't fit into the editorial staff's blatantly right-wing agenda. In its zeal to condemn anything and everything Obama, the Telegraph is doing its readers a disservice by missing, whether by accident or intentionally, coal-related news stories that prove the administration is willing to reach compromises with our state's coal operations.
