Mine Permits Public Hearings Set
- {Frankfort, Kentucky}...Three public hearings have been set on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's objections to dozens of coal mining water quality permits. Kentucky Environmental Protection Commissioner R. Bruce Scott says state officials believe the permits satisfy the EPA's objections. State regulators requested the hearings to help work out a long dispute over how to enforce water quality regulations at new or expanded mines. Scott says the first hearing will be June 5th in Frankfort, and the other two will be June 7th in Pikeville. The issue is whether 36 state permits issued to mining companies in 2010 and 2011 sufficiently protect water quality from mining activities that include blasting mountains to get at coal and filling in streams with waste rock.
