Obama's Nominee to Head Surface Mining Department Must Be Stopped Now

With so many qualified candidates for the directorship of the important Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, why is the Obama administration nominating a controversial advocate for coal ash dumping, who also admits he still needs to learn more about the even more controversial and huge issue of mountaintop removal?

After eight years of rogue mining operators and Bush-era administrators, and reckless mining regulatory oversights, and with the shipwrecked OSM agency in desperate need of a makeover, the OSM nomination of Joseph G. Pizarchik, the seemingly good-natured and well-meaning Pennsylvania Director of the Bureau of Mining and Reclamation, is a colossal error.

While invoking his hardworking southwestern PA family farm credentials in a touching manner at the US Senate nomination hearing today, Pizarchik made two extraordinary admissions:

• In the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, and the continual fall out over last December's TVA coal ash tragedy, and against the current move by Lisa Jackson and the EPA for greater regulatory oversight, Pizarchik defiantly touted his state's dumping of coal ash at strip mine sites and openly denied scientific evidence of coal ash pollution.
• In the face of 38 years of reports and studies on the devastating impact of mountaintop removal in his neighboring state of West Virginia, under mining policies that even his future Department of Interior boss Ken Salazar said have "failed to protect our communities, water, and wildlife in Appalachia," Pizarchik dodged the question of mountaintop removal questions three times, and pitifully uttered that he needed to "learn more about the facts and details... what has transpired in the past," and that he didn't know the "nuances and details" of the Obama administration's move to "minimize the adverse environmental impacts" of mountaintop removal.

This was either a pitiful admission of ignorance on a complex issue of national importance, or a disingenuous pander to the rogue mountaintop removal elements of the coal industry.

As one fellow southwestern PA coal miner's granddaughter wrote to the local Washington, PA newspaper recently: "Citizens in the coalfields need to be heard regarding his qualifications. If Pizarchik leads the OSM, it will be a continuation of "the fox watching the hen house," where money rules and health in not an issue."

You can watch Pizarchik's hearing here.

As always, Charleston Gazette coalfield journalist Ken Ward has filed several in-depth stories on his Coal Tattoo blog: here and here.

On the issue of coal ash dumping, Pizarchik has been in the forefront of coal ash pollution deniers, even after a 2007 study found that "Disposing of coal ash in mines is contaminating water supplies throughout Pennsylvania, according to a report released today by Clean Air Task Force (CATF) and Earthjustice. In 10 of 15 mines examined across the state, groundwater and streams near areas where coal ash, or coal combustion waste, was placed had levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium and selenium and other pollutants above safe standards."

The report is here.

An analysis of the report concluded: "Disposing of coal combustion waste in these mines is threatening water supplies all over the state," said Jeff Stant, director of the Pennsylvania Minefill Research Project at the Clean Air Task Force. "If the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection won't act now to stop these dangers, the US EPA should step in to protect the residents of Pennsylvania who live near coal ash mine fills."

And now the head of this PA disaster will be in charge of monitoring strip mining operations?