Read KFTC's comments

ACTION ALERT: November 20, 2006

Tell the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to

Respect Kentucky People and Streams

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers currently issues valley fill permits to coal companies to allow the burying of streams with mining wastes.  They do this under a program known as “nationwide permits” or the NWP21 program.  Permits are supposed to be issued under this program only when the activity involved has a minimal environmental impact, individually and cumulatively. 

Coal company valley fills have buried more than 420 miles of streams in Kentucky and at least 1200 miles throughout Central Appalachia. Ninety-five percent of Appalachian headwaters streams are impacted by mining, and sediment is the greatest pollutant in the majority of streams in the Kentucky coalfields.  Yet the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concludes that valley fills have minimal adverse environmental impact!

Every five years the Corps is required by federal law to re-issue the nationwide permitting standards for various types of activities, and the agency is currently in the process of doing so.  Basically, the Corps is proposing to maintain the status quo and ignore volumes of scientific data that document the devastating consequences of valley fills.

There is a provision in the law, however, that allows regional Corps offices to “add regional conditions specific to the needs and/or requirements of a particular region or state.” In other words, the Louisville Corps office could determine that granting NWP21 permits in the Kentucky coalfields is not consistent with its mandate to protect our water resources.  We are asking you to help convince Corps officials in Louisville that this is the action they should take.

ACTION NEEDED:  Please write to the Corps of Engineers office in Louisville with the following message and request:

•  coal mining is causing significant environmental damage to Kentucky’s waterways (if this is happening in your community, be sure to mention that);
•  the Corps should stop issuing nationwide permits under Section 21, E and F, in Kentucky;
•  the Corps’ district commander and deputy commander should accept an invitation from KFTC to tour areas in eastern Kentucky to view firsthand the direct and cumulative impacts of NWP21 valley fills on the waters of Kentucky.

Send your letter to:

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville District
ATTN: Ms. Amy S. Babey, CELRL-OP-FN
P.O. Box 59
Louisville, Kentucky 40201-0059
Fax: 502-315-6677

Comments need to be submitted by November 27.