Critical area for outdoor recreation, tourism and wildlife now off-limits to surface mining.
Cerulean Warbler. Photo: Frode Jacobsen
WASHINGTON—(ENEWSPF)–December 9, 2016. Yesterday, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell declared75,000 acres of eastern Tennessee mountain ridgelines as unsuitable for surface coal mining operations. The decision comes after Tennessee’s Department of Environment and Conservation petitioned Interior to protect the area, which is of critical importance for the state’s outdoor recreation economy and wildlife. The National Audubon…
