Late last week the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection published its final certification conditions for Nationwide Permits 21, 49 & 50. These permits are the programmatic general permits issued by the Corps for use in mining-related dredge and fill activities. NWP 21 can be used for surface coal mining activities, NWP 49 for remining activities and NWP 50 for underground mine related fill activities.
The Section 401 certification process allows individual states to impose certain conditions and restrictions on the use of these general permits. The WV DEP’s certification of the NWPs imposes certain mitigation requirements and requires an individual certification of the NWPs when the impacts of the project exceed certain thresholds. The Association offered voluminous comments of the draft WV DEP certification conditions, mainly with respect to state-imposed mitigation requirements that conflict with federal mitigation guidelines as implemented by the Corps under the Section 404 permitting program. Based on WV DEP’s response to these comments, the Association is actively considering an appeal of the certifications.
To obtain electronic copies of the Association comments and the final 401 certification documents contact jbostic@wvcoal.com
