Just when it seemed that mountaintop mining was a thing of the past, reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has moved a new project in West Virginia have surfaced.

Environmental groups are crying foul at the EPA's decision, saying mountaintop mining is an environmentally risky approach to gathering natural resources. There are two mines affected, one in Lincoln County and one in Logan County.

The mine in Lincoln County is the Hobet 45 mine, operated by Hobet Mining.

The decision had to sign off on a Clean Water Act permit for Patriot Coal Corp.'s Hobet 45 mountaintop removal coal mine in Lincoln County, West Virginia. This permit, which is highly controversial, now goes to the Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for actually issuing it and making the project a reality.

Mountaintop mining is of particular concern to environmental groups because of its potentially disastrous impact on streams and local water. The Sierra Club and other national and local environmental groups are appealing to the Obama Administration to start a rulemaking to exclude mining waste from the definition of ‘fill’ as a material that can be dumped in waters of the United States.

This decision is the first mountaintop removal mining permit to move forward from a group of permits that the EPA identified in 2009 needed additional attention.

"Sadly, the coal industry’s undue influence over decision-makers has traded people’s health, communities, and water for profit," stated Janet Keating, Executive Director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition in a press release. "We’re shooting ourselves in the future. After all the coal has been mined, what kind of economic development can happen when the water is unfit to drink and people have been driven away?"

The permit, if it goes through, will allow Patriot to mine through over three miles of streams, and add millions of cubic yards of fill to existing valley fills offsite.

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