VDOT Expected to Release Final Environmental Assessment Shortly

Following significant concerns from community groups and environmental organizations in response to the draft environmental assessment of the controversial Coalfields Expressway project last summer, VDOT is expected to release a final assessment soon.

In August 2012, SELC urged VDOT to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement for the proposed Coalfields Expressway, which is essentially a mountaintop removal coal mining project camouflaged as a highway. The agency’s draft assessment failed to analyze the significant environmental impacts that would result from the project’s new reliance on mountaintop removal coal mining, which prompted over 85,000 public comments urging the agency to conduct a thorough environmental review of the project.