Conservancy is back: Cites Haden ruling in Arch permit challenge

摘要

The West Virginia Highlands conservancy, which lost a landmark 1998 lawsuit over placement of mine fill material into streams, is apparently attempting to apply the same legal principles used in that failed suit to a new mine permit issued to Arch Coal. In the 1998 lawsuit, the Conservancy won an initial ruling from U.S. District Judge Charles Haden that banned placement of fill material into the 100-foot "buffer zones" around intermittent and perennial streams. That would have stopped most fills. But that decision was overturned by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on the technical issue that the suit should have been brought in state court, not federal court. The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal, which left the Fourth Circuit decision in place. Things have been pretty quiet on the buffer zone front for four years now, though other lawsuits related to mining issues have been filed.