Coal River Mountain Watch just premiered a new section of its web site, Edwight Watch. Here’s an excerpt from the “About” section of the site:
In the spring of 2009, Bo Webb pressured federal and state regulatory agencies to start issuing violations in response to dangerous, active blasting at the Edwight Surface Mine, just uphill of his property. The WV Department of Environmental Protection, while somewhat responsive, has continued to disobey the law in their handling of violations on Edwight.
Edwight Watch is an effort to expose the lack of regulation on Edwight and all mountaintop removal sites in the coalfields of West Virginia. Coal River Mountain Watch volunteers and interns are partnering with community members to cite violations using a variety of methods, including ground photography from nearby ridges and the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping to compare aerial photography to current mine permits. We have encouraged WV Department of Environmental Protection inspectors to utilize these methods, but no changes have been made thus far. Our information is bolstered by extensive amounts of historical information and oral testimony related to the destruction of the Hazy Creek and Shumate drainages.
Taking Bo Webb and his work fighting the injustice of the mining regulatory system in West Virginia as inspiration, we hope to encourage community members to speak out about their frustrations with the regulatory systems to us and to the regulators that must hear them.
The WVDEP issued several violations in the summer of 2009, due in large part to Webb’s efforts. Several of these violations were of the same type, sending the mine site in to show cause. The WVDEP has yet to prove or explain why they will not hold a public hearing, as mandated by law, on the show cause order that Bo Webb initiated. Read the press release here.
