Environmental groups say government is not protecting rare KY species from ‘extinction’
Federal and state regulators are not enforcing rules designed to protect a threatened crayfish in Eastern Kentucky from pollution caused by surface mining, two environmental groups have alleged.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Appalachian Voices released a notice Thursday of their intent to sue the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service if the agencies don’t fix the problems within 60 days.
The groups notified the agencies by letter Thursday.
“Nobody, and I mean nobody, is doing their job to guard against extinction here and the process to protect wildlife from coal mining is just being ignored,” Perrin de Jong, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a news release.
The species specifically cited in the notice are the Big Sandy crayfish, which is found in the Big Sandy River watershed in Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia, and the endangered Guyandotte River crayfish in West Virginia.
Both were listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act because of impacts and threats to their habitat from coal mining, according to the groups.
State and federal agencies are supposed to make sure coal companies have a plan in place to avoid or minimize harm to the crayfish and other species before mining begins, the environmental groups said.
That provision has been in place for 30 months as a result of prior litigation by the Center for Biological Diversity and others, according to the release.
However, the center and Appalachian Voices found 388 coal-mining facilities in the three states don’t have the plans in place.
The groups said 84% of the mines within three miles upstream from habitat designated as critical for the crayfish in the three states don’t have plans in place, and that mining “continues unabated throughout these watersheds.”
None of the 157 mining facilities in Kentucky that have an impact on critical habitat for the Big Sandy crayfish has a plan in place, according to the notice of intent to sue.
The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet said it believes protection plans might be required on more than 200 surface-mining permits.
As a result of the “slow nature of the permit-by-permit analysis,” the agency said it hadn’t yet determined which ones will need a plan, according to the groups’ notice of intent to sue.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Appalachian Voices charged that states aren’t enforcing the rules; that OSM isn’t properly overseeing the states; and that U.S Fish and Wildlife isn’t making sure there are plans in place to protect the species.
“The states and the feds are blowing past the law’s clear command to protect these rare crayfish and their homes in Appalachian mountain streams,” said de Jong, a Berea College graduate.
A spokesman for the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet said the agency had no comment. OSM and U.S. Fish and Wildlife were not immediately available for comment.
Surface coal mining can result in pollutants such as sediment and heavy metals getting into streams.
The Guyandotte River crayfish has been wiped out in 93% of the places where it was once known to exist, and the Big Sandy crayfish was recently observed in only 34% of the sites surveyed where it was likely to be, according to the two environmental groups.
