DEP Biologist Says Agency Chief Huffman Misled U.S. Senate
Charleston Gazette
21 August 2009
By Ken Ward Jr., Staff writer
Read the DEP memo here.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A West Virginia Department of Environmental
Protection biologist has warned that DEP Secretary Randy Huffman misled
Congress about the damage being done by mountaintop-removal coal
mining, an internal agency memo shows.
Doug Wood, a stream assessment biologist with the DEP's Division of
Water and Waste Management, said in his memo that he hoped Huffman
"will be better informed the next time he represents our agency's
current state of knowledge to federal authorities and elected
representatives."
Wood wrote the three-page memo after Huffman testified at a June 25
Senate subcommittee hearing that the Obama administration has little
evidence that mountaintop removal is doing much damage to Appalachian
streams.
In the memo, Wood noted he had written numerous reports and memos on
the issue since 2002 and "it appears that Secretary Huffman is unaware
of the findings of our efforts to understand the effects of mountaintop
coal extraction to aquatic ecosystems in West Virginia."
Wood said DEP studies are "consistent with data generated by the [U.S.]
Environmental Protection Agency" regarding mountaintop removal causing
negative impacts to the "chemical, physical and hydrologic ...
components of aquatic ecosystems.
"With valley fill discharges, especially those from very large valley
fills, we can expect the negative impacts to last for centuries, just
as deep mine discharges have remained toxic for centuries," Wood wrote
in the June 30 memo. "Such long-lasting adverse impacts are indeed
significant."
Huffman said Friday he had not seen Wood's memo and could not respond
to it until he had a chance to review it in detail.
Wood sent his memo not directly to Huffman, but forwarded it up the
chain of command at the DEP to his supervisors, Jeff Bailey, John Wirts
and Pat Campbell, in the water division's watershed assessment section.
Campbell, who is assistant water division director, said Friday he had
looked at Wood's memo only after he heard that the Gazette-Mail had a
copy of it.
"I'm really not so much concerned about the content, but with how this
document got to you," Campbell said. "This was an internal memo that
nobody has had a chance to read yet."