This one halts work on a "stream buffer rule" to protect waters from industrial activity.
The Bush administration also weakened a longstanding regulation known as the stream buffer rule that had prevented mine operators from depositing debris within 100 feet of a stream.
Third, the White House announced today that its review of the Bush-era "stream buffer rule" is finally within sight, after years of regulatory banter and litigation.
Though commissioners said they applauded the operator, the Ohio House, for helping its clients combat their addictions and get back on their feet, they didn't see a compelling reason to deviate from the city's buffer rule for such facilities, which would have been necessary to grant the requested conditional use permit to continue operating.
As a result, Casa Capri had to apply for separate permits for the two properties on 16th Place — meaning the buffer rule would come into play for the neighboring parcels, even though there are no other sober-living homes within 650 feet.
Slope and aspect calculations; raster buffers; rule-based multi-band combinations.
In its brief, the Justice Department argued that Judge Charles H. Haden II of United States District Court in Charleston, W. Va., ruled properly in October that the buffer zone rule of the surface mining law prohibited the dumping of mountaintop coal waste near streams.
Fortunately, the administration has an opportunity to take meaningful action to protect Appalachian streams this winter, when the Office of Surface Mining is scheduled to release a draft Stream Protection Rule to replace the outdated Stream Buffer Zone rule promulgated more than 30 years ago.
In 2004, confronted with yet another obstacle — the so-called stream buffer zone rule prohibiting any mining activity within 100 feet of a stream — the administration decided that the rule only required companies to respect the buffer zone "to the extent practicable," in effect green-lighting further dumping.
The nettlesome buffer zone rule still remained in place, so in 2004 the administration began a systematic effort to weaken it as well.
