Environmental Enforcement as a Shield Rather than a Sword: How Environmental Injustice Resulted from Increased Coal Mining Violations After a Settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency

Abstract

Abstract

A top priority of the Executive Office of the President has been to address environmental justice in minority and low-income populations. Pollution is attributed to disproportionate health impacts and economic growth. Environmental pollution from coal mining and mountaintop removal (MTR) mining exists in the Appalachian region, which also suffers from widespread poverty, low incomes, low education levels, and poor health.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is tasked with incorporating environmental justice into its mission by identifying disproportionate environmental effects and health impacts on low-income populations. That goal could be accomplished through enforcement efforts to stop or lessen water pollution in Appalachia by bringing enforcement actions against coal mining operations which routinely discharge illegal quantities of pollutants under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Environmental justice also requires EPA to actually follow through and force violators to come into compliance with the CWA—to stop discharging illegal quantities of pollutants.

Although EPA, through the Department of Justice (DOJ), has prosecuted one habitual violator across its entire operations in West Virginia and Kentucky, EPA has failed to follow up to ensure that conditions improved at the mine sites. Instead, the mining operator has violated the CWA more often, at more sites, and with more pollutants. The citizens and environment of central Appalachia have been harmed by ongoing and, in some cases, increased pollution. EPA's failure to stop illegal discharges results in environmental injustice.