Mid-Atlantic Mountaintop Mining

In October 2005, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Office of Surface Mining, and West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection completed their review and evaluation of all comments received on the Draft PEIS and jointly prepared the Final PEIS on mountaintop coal mining and associated valley fills in Appalachia. On October 28, 2005, the agencies announced the availability of the Final PEIS (PDF)[507pp, 25.4M] in a Federal Register notice and in a multi-agency press release widely distributed to local and national media. Please use these highlighted links to view these documents and any attachments.

The Final PEIS includes the following: the comments received on the Draft PEIS, which are part of the Public Comment Compendium (Volumes 1-3); issues identified in the comments; responses on the issues; and an errata sheet. The Final PEIS incorporates by reference the Draft PEIS published in June 2003. After considering all the comments received on the Draft PEIS and developing responses, the agencies determined that changes required to the Draft PEIS were minor. Therefore, the agencies implemented the provision of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act at Section 1503.4(c), which reads:

(c) If changes in response to comments are minor and are confined to the responses described in paragraphs (a)(4) and (5) of this section, agencies may write them on errata sheets and attach them to the statement instead of rewriting the draft statement. In such cases only the comments, the responses, and the changes and not the final statement need be circulated (Sec. 1502.19). The entire document with a new cover sheet shall be filed as the final statement (Sec. 1506.9).

In accordance with this provision, the agencies have placed a Final PEIS cover sheet on the Draft PEIS and, along with the errata sheet and comments/responses, have filed it as the Final PEIS on mountaintop coal mining and associated valley fills in Appalachia.

The Draft PEIS was released for public comment in May 2003. During the comment period, which closed on January 21, 2004, approximately 83,500 comments were received. A large portion of these comments were composed of form e-mails, postcards, and letters while others were substantive and very detailed. For form e-mails, postcards, and letters, each unique form is displayed in Volume 3 of the Public Comment Compendium.

For further information on this Programmatic EIS, please contact the following agency representatives:

US Army Corps of Engineers
Washington, DC
Katherine Trott (202) 761-5542
katherine.l.trott@hq02.usace.army.mil

US Office of Surface Mining
Pittsburgh, PA
Michael Robinson (412) 937-2882
mrobinso@osmre.gov

US Environmental Protection Agency
Philadelphia, PA
John Forren (215) 814-2705
forren.john@epa.gov

US Fish and Wildlife Service
State College, PA
Cindy Tibbott (814) 234-4090
cindy_tibbott@fws.gov

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection
Charleston, WV
Russell Hunter (304) 759-0510
rhunter@wvdep.org

Clicking on Documents leads you to various federal documents that have been issued by either the PEIS Steering Committee or EPA, such as the Steering Committee's Goals and Questions document, which outlines the various agencies' concerns to be addressed within the PEIS. The Chemical/Biological Monitoring Protocol developed to inform and facilitate the permitting process can also be found in this location.

Periodic public information updates have also been prepared by the EIS Steering Committee, and can be accessed by clicking on Bulletins. Other Information links to other EIS-related information, such as a summary of public scoping comments received on the issue.