The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just issued this announcement:

Today, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) issued a final Clean Water Act (CWA) permit to Coal-Mac Inc. for the Pine Creek Surface Mine project in Logan County, West Virginia.

More about this permit in this previous post.

According to EPA:

Consistent with the Clean Water Act and the recent EPA guidance on mountain top mining, the Agency’s consultation with the Company and the Corps led to significant changes to the permit that will reduce potential adverse impacts to water quality and avoid significant degradation of the aquatic ecosystems in the Pine Creek watershed. The key changes include reductions to stream impacts, protection of water quality through a strict conductivity level, enhanced mitigation and restoration, and reduction of cumulative impacts. EPA also reached an agreement with the company related to sequencing of valley fill construction. The company may only proceed with the first valley fill and any additional valley fills will have to be evaluated individually as part of the agreement. If EPA and the Corps find that any of the valley fills are adversely impacting water quality, we will not approve additional mining at the site. The company agreed to meet all conditions presented by the Agency.