In response to EPA's appeal, St. Louis-based Arch Coal Corp. says Congress never intended to give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "unbridled power" over water-pollution permits for coal mines, and an appellate court should uphold a judge's ruling that EPA overstepped its authority in vetoing them for one of West Virginia's largest mountaintop removal operations. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled in March that EPA had overreached in the case of the 2,300-acre Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County. Arch argues final authority to issue, oversee and enforce permits issued under section 404 of the Clean Water Act lies solely with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, not the EPA. Last month, five environmental groups argued the EPA did have the power to veto the permits and that Jackson improperly considered the potential economic implications when ruling otherwise. In January 2011, the EPA revoked a permit that the Corps had issued four years earlier to Arch and its Mingo Logan Coal Co. subsidiary. It was only the 13th time since 1972 that the EPA had used the veto authority and the first time it had acted on a previously permitted mine.
