For news about coal mining, we turn to Ken Ward, Jr., and the Charleston (WVA) Gazette, and the news was swirling yesterday that the federal Environmental Protection Agency was going to more closely scrutinize permits that use mountaintop removal mining techniques. In this kind of mining, the tops of mountains are blasted, scrapped off and pushed into the valleys (and streams) below, exposing the coal seam. Ward reported that EPA wasn't blocking permits, but it was reviewing its position on whether this kind of mining violated existing laws.

EPA's move confused everyone. Coal interests warned of massive unemployment. Environmental groups declared victory. The EPA said Monday that its position on mountaintop mining was "in a state of transition." Today, in his Coal Tattoo blog, Ward reports that EPA may be starting to slow mountaintop mining, but "we don't know how much of a crackdown it's eventually going to turn out to be."

Ward reviews the history of mountaintop mining — and by the end of his article, we're not so sure what is likely to happen. The Louisville Courier-Journal quoted President Obama as saying, "I will tell you that there's some pretty country up there that's been torn up pretty good." Ward notes that on two different mine permits, Obama's EPA has taken two entirely different positions on mountaintop mining. So which position will EPA eventually take? We'll have to wait — and read Coal Tattoo.

The editors at the Daily Yonder are as myopic as anyone else, so it was only when brush fires burned over 1,200 acres and 20 homes near our old hometown of Smithville, Texas, that we began reading about Australia's "stay and defend" fire policy. After the country's 1983 "Ash Wednesday" fire that killed 75 people, most trying to escape the blaze, the Aussies have trained homeowners how to safely protect their homes in a wildfire. The policy has been questioned after fires burned 1,500 square miles of land in early February and killed 210 people (above).

But fire researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, say the Australian approach should be adopted in the rural U.S. "What the Australian strategy does is actively engage and help homeowners to become part of the solution rather than just to need evacuation," said Scott Stephens, co-director of the Berkeley's Center for Fire Research and Outreach. "However, it should be noted that some California communities are so vulnerable that a 'prepare and leave early' strategy may be the only option."

Even after the deadly Australian fire, researchers agreed that the "stay and defend" policy was fundamentally sound. Some communities in Southern California and parts of rural Montana are copying the Australian approach.

A federal appeals court has issued a decision that will make it easier for coal companies to use mountaintop removal mining methods. The court in Richmond, Virginia, voted 2-1 to overturn a district judge's 2007 decision that would require a more thorough mine permit review of mountaintop projects. It was a "victory for the coal industry," according to Ken Ward of The Charleston (WV) Gazette. Environmental groups have been fighting mountaintop removal mines for years.

Companies using this mining technique remove the tops of mountains to reach the seams of coal underneath. (See photo above.) They take the rock and soil from the top of the mountains and place it in the valley below, often covering streams. The district judge had ruled earlier that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not property consider environmental impacts before issuing a federal permit to a mountaintop removal mine. The appeals court ruled, however, that this regulation was best left to state agencies.

Coal Tattoo has good, ongoing coverage of the decision, which is big news in the southern Appalachian mountains. Ken Ward writes that "what environmental groups — and the coal industry, for that matter — are really waiting for now is to what, if anything, President Barack Obama decided to do about mountaintop removal." In August 2007, Obama said in Kentucky that the country was "tearing up the Appalachian mountains because of our dependence on fossil fuels."

There are more than a few Yonder readers with a thing for coal, coal miners and coal communities. For them, we can recommend a new site, Coal Tattoo. It's written by Ken Ward, Jr., a reporter for the Charleston Gazette.

Coal Tattoo is the quickest place to catch up on coal news. Sen. Robert Byrd met with some Obama Administration folks about coal policy, we see. There are reports on the causes of some recent deaths of mine workers. And Ward keeps up day-to-day on the incredible story taking place on Coal River Mountain, where protesters are trying to stop a giant mountaintop removal project. Activists in Southern West Virginia say the mountain is uniquely suited for wind turbines and that this possibility would be destroyed by mining. Last week, they blocked mining equipment (above), leading to their arrest by the state police.

Coal Tattoo is the name of a song written by Billy Ed Wheeler (also author of Coward of the County and The Rev. Mr. Black) Coal Tattoo was written in the early 1960s when a group of miners in Eastern Kentucky went on strike against both the coal operators AND the United Mine Workers. The UMW, at the time, was colluding with the industry and had agreed to strip workers of their health care insurance. Ken has a YouTube of Kathy Mattea singing Coal Tattoo on the site right now.