If the Democratic Congress wants to establish itself as a green alternative to six ugly years of Bushcology, there’s no better – or easier – place to start than ending mountaintop removal mining.

The term “mountaintop removal mining: is a perfect description of the process, but a more gripping explanation comes from Erik Reece, author of Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness. Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia: "Mountaintop removal entails the blasting of entire summits to rubble in an effort to reach, as quickly as possible, thin seams of bituminous coal. Trees, topsoil and sandstone are dumped into the valleys below.”

According to state and federal studies, the dumping has buried more than 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams, and polluted 95 percent of the headwater streams near the operations.

Anglers and other green groups have labored for decades to end the practice, but the coal lobby was too powerful in both Democratic and Republican administrations. That power grew even greater when George W. Bush took office. In 2002, with environmentalists pressing legal questions, the administration reclassified the tons of rock and debris being tossed down the mountains from “waste” to “fill” basically exempting mountaintop removal mining from important sections of the Clean Water Act.

The destruction continued unabated until March, when a federal judge ruled in favor of environmental groups that claimed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not done an adequate environmental impact statement on four mining operations. Seems the corps had decided that mountaintop removal mining would have “no significant impact" on the local environment, and further claimed the mining companies could return everything to original health after cleanup.

Judge Robert Chambers - like everyone else not connected to coal companies - disagreed, ruling “The Corps believes that once the ditches are connected and channels reshaped, they will transform into streams and supply the same structure and functions as the destroyed streams. However, the Corps offers little experience or scientific support for this belief. The Corp's witnesses . . . conceded that the Corps does not know of any successful stream creation projects in the Appalachian region."

The coal companies have said they would appeal the ruling. Given the way the Bush Administration has been stocking the courts with anti-regulatory zealots, their chances are good.

But there’s still hope. The Clear Water Protection Act, H.R. 2169, introduced earlier this month, would end the practice. At last count it had 67 co-sponsors.

Green sportsmen should urge their reps to join the list – it’s good for trout, sportsmen and the earth.