WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th September, 2019) A coalition of US environmental groups is suing the Trump administration for failing to protect endangered species in the Appalachian Mountains from expanded coal mining, the Center for Biological Diversity said on Wednesday.
"The Center for Biological Diversity and allies sued the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement and the US Fish and Wildlife Service today for failing to protect endangered species from coal mining in Appalachia in violation of the Endangered Species Act," the Center for Biological Diversity said in a press release.
Increased levels of pollution and expanding the practices of razing forests and blasting are driving aquatic animals to the brink of extinction because of heavy political pressure exerted by the Trump administration, the release said.
"Trump appointees have enabled a rubber-stamp system allowing mountains to be blown up and streams to be polluted without protection for endangered species or the human communities of Appalachia," Center for Biological Diversity scientist Tierra Curry said in the release. "It's illegal and immoral and it needs to stop."
The lawsuit challenges the Trump administration's continued reliance on a national "biological opinion" from 1996 that was overturned in 2016 because it repeatedly failed to protect endangered species from coal mining activities, the release said.
