Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today said the stream buffer zone rule is legally defective, and the Department of Justice will challenge the rule in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., according to a news release.

The DOJ will ask that the rule be vacated and remanded to the Department of Interior for further action, the release stated.

“In its last weeks in office, the Bush Administration pushed through a rule that allows coal mine operators to dump mountaintop fill into streambeds if it’s found to be the cheapest and most convenient disposal option,” Salazar said in a news release.

“We must responsibly develop our coal supplies to help us achieve energy independence, but we cannot do so without appropriately assessing the impact such development might have on local communities and natural habitat and the species it supports.”

The rule change would tighten restrictions on when coal companies can create valley fills.

Valley fills are created when rock and rubble covering coal seams is removed and strategically dumped in nearby ravines. Environmental groups say the practice chokes streams and pollutes water.

Coal mine operators may dispose of excess mining waste in streams and within 100 feet of those streams when alternative options are considered "not reasonably possible" under the present rule. The Bush-era rule said unreasonable alternatives are those that cost substantially more than dumping the waste.

The Bush-era rule replaced a 1983 rule that allowed the dumping of overburden within 100 feet of a stream only when such activities “will not adversely affect the water quantity or quality or other environmental resources of the stream,” according to the news release

Two lawsuits were filed immediately after the Bush rule was published, the release stated.

“The so-called ‘stream buffer zone rule’ simply doesn’t pass muster with respect to adequately protecting water quality and stream habitat that communities rely on in coal country,” Salazar said in the release.

If the court accepts the United States' request and vacates and remands the rule, the 1983 rule will continue to remain in force in all of the states that have delegated authority under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act.