TROUT FOR COAL

(07/06/2006)

By Bob Weaver Building coal silos within a few feet of a public school to eliminating trout streams so coal mining operations can begin, appear to be standard responses in favor of King Coal in the Mountain State. The WV Department of Environmental Protection says it wants to remove 141 trout streams from a protected list, because of "coal reserve development." "West Virginia may be open for business, but maybe not the business of tourism and recreation," said Larry Orr, chairman of the WV Council of Trout Unlimited. While there is focus on local residents who live or work near streams when their "developments" affect the quality of water, the state allows wholesale permission to dump refuse in a thousand miles of stream beds from mountaintop removal, or in this current case, eliminating protection over trout streams to permit mining.

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