The Environmental Protection Agency took the unusual step of revoking a permit Thursday for the country's largest surface mine, a setback for the controversial practice of "mountaintop removal" that helps produce 10 percent of the nation's coal.
The 2,300-acre operation at the Mingo Logan Coal Co.'s Spruce No. 1 coal mine in West Virginia has been mired in litigation since 1998.
The EPA's decision could affect dozens of other mining projects across Appalachia, where firms have been blasting the peaks off mountains for years to reach coal seams and then depositing the remaining rubble in surrounding valleys.
While the federal government issued permits for hundreds of these activities under the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, the EPA adopted new environmental guidelines in April and is now reviewing 33 other pending permits.
On a quiet street near the marsh in Charleston, South Carolina’s Rosemont neighborhood, Luvenia Brown watches...
Hexavalent chromium nanoparticles were found in air samples gathered by researchers over the course of several...
The National Hurricane Center is tracking systems in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans on Saturday,...
A powerful storm kicked up a towering wall of dust that rolled through the city of...
