SO ONE of Sen. Jim Bunning's staffers, whose father is helping a
coal company arrange to strip mine in Knox County, went to the
senator for help with a regulatory problem. And, according to the
problematic regulator, Sen. Bunning's office responded in a big way,
helping Core Management Inc. get approval for mining on a tributary
of Acorn Fork.
"His staff was putting pressure on us to make a recommendation that
would allow us to approve it," says Lee Barclay, who supervises U.
S. Fish and Wildlife Service activities in Kentucky and Tennessee.
"They wanted to get it approved, and get it approved in a big hurry."
They went over his head, Mr. Barclay said, and the word came down
for something extraordinary -- allowing the relocation of a protected
population of fish that is in the way.
Sen. Bunning's office says what it did wasn't pressure, just ordinary
constituent service. But for which constituents? Certainly not those
who care about the law protecting threatened or endangered species.
This job means relocating blackside dace, whose role in mountain
ecology isn't well understood and whose absence will have uncertain
consequences.
The idea is to move them temporarily and restore the mined-out area
so they can return. But anybody who has seen surface mining will
recognize this as a risky scenario. For example, dace need the shade
provided by trees, which the strip operation would remove.
The fish, of course, have no relatives on the senator's staff to plead
their case. But they do have friends among the environmentalists,
such as Kentucky Resources Council attorney Tom FitzGerald, who
calls the relocation plan Orwellian.
The point is, it's not just the blackside dace that are at risk. It's all
the
other threatened and endangered species that have been protected
from the moving van (until now) by the federal Endangered Species
Act. If the dace can be evicted, why not all the other animals that live
in the path of industry and development?
What kind of constituent service is it to undercut, in this way, the
federal regulatory system that safeguards our wildlife heritage?
A Core Management official gave the Bunning campaign $500 last
year, but there's no evidence such a gift was required to get action.
Kentucky's senators, like lawmakers throughout the Appalachian
coalfield, will endorse or ignore almost anything to help the industry:
the elimination of mountaintops, the obliteration of streams, the
flouting of safety practices, the destruction of public highways by
overweight trucks, the endangerment of nearby residents.
They can't say "no" to Big Coal. Kentucky regulators, who still will
have the last word on this issue, should show them how.
Copyright 2002 The Courier-Journal.
Also see: Rare fish may be moved to allow mining