"The groups want to force the Corps to issue only individual permits for mining operations, which take longer than a more general nationwide permit program the environmentalists believe the Corps is not implementing correctly. The goal? Fewer mountaintop removal mining projects."

"It is unfortunate that citizens must resort to litigation to force the Bush administration to enforce environmental protection laws passed by Congress more than 25 years ago. The administration’s collusion with coal operators to undermine the enforcement of these crucial laws, if allowed to continue, will not only destroy the region’s forests, streams and mountains, but also its economic future."

"Vivian Stockman, an organizer with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, said mountaintop removal mining doesn’t fit the definition of "minimal impact" required for the Corps of Engineers to allow a permit to fall under the generic analysis.

"Instead, the agency has approved permits that have buried more than 1,200 miles of streams and replaced thousands of acres of hardwood forests with grasslands, she said.

"It’s painfully obvious that the Corps is acting without regard to the law by ignoring the individual, let alone cumulative effects, of valley fills on the natural resources and communities in the coalfields. The Corps isn’t bothering to review and evaluate the destruction it is permitting. The effects to communities and the ecosystem are hardly minimal and temporary, but massive and permanent," Stockman said. "The Corps is betraying the public trust by leaving a landscape that will not recover for hundreds of years."