skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Environmental Hearing Board Overturns Mining Permit

play audio
Play

Thursday, August 17, 2017   

GREENE COUNTY, Pa. – The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) has ruled that a revised underground mining permit violates the state's Clean Streams Law and the state constitution.

The permit, issued by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in 2015, would have allowed longwall coal mining under Polen Run, a stream flowing into Ryerson Station State Park.

Two community groups challenged the permit saying it was granted despite knowledge that mining would cause extensive damage to the stream.

Veronica Coptis, executive director of the Center for Coalfield Justice, calls the EHB ruling an important victory for the environment.

"The ruling is putting the industry and DEP on notice that it has to start doing a better job of developing mining plans to protect streams," she states.

The revised permit would have required the mining company to repair the stream after the damage was done.

But Coptis points out that stream reclamation efforts often fail.

"In this watershed and particularly around Ryerson Station State Park, we have not seen it be successful at restoring streams that have been damaged from mining," she stresses.

Polen Run is one of the few remaining water features in the park.

A new state law creating an exemption to the Clean Streams Law has been signed and is under review.

But Coptis notes that the EHB also agreed with the challenge to the permit on constitutional grounds.

"So as that law gets approval by the Office of Surface Mining and becomes enacted, the DEP still has to follow the constitutional rights of Article I, section 27," she points out.

That article guarantees the people of Pennsylvania the right to "clean air, pure water and the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment."




get more stories like this via email

more stories
Corporate partners sign contracts to offer a graduate assistantship and pay the students. In turn, MSU pays the graduate assistant's tuition, fees and salary, so the assistantship is directly tied to the academic experience. (pressmaster/Adobe Stock)

play sound

By Victoria Lim for WorkingNation.Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Missouri News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Col…


Social Issues

play sound

A new report brands Connecticut's tax system as "regressive" for low- to middle-income residents and uses a report from the state to make its point…

Environment

play sound

Backers of a new federal rule said it will increase fairness for livestock and poultry producers, in North Carolina and across the country. The U.S…


A study by the advocacy group Inseparable showed one in five adults said at any given time, they consider their mental health to be either 'fair' or 'poor.' (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Mental health care advocates are encouraging federal agencies to adopt a proposed update to regulations which would expand access to psychological car…

Social Issues

play sound

With hotter summers bringing hotter working conditions, the Maryland Department of Labor is implementing a heat stress standard to protect workers …

Social Issues

play sound

By Jimmy Cloutier for OpenSecrets.Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the OpenSecrets-Public News Service Collaboratio…

Environment

play sound

Recreational fishermen in New England say commercial trawlers are threatening the survival of smaller businesses relying on a healthy stock of Atlanti…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021