MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - West Virginia's top environmental official says surface-mine permitting in his state is getting tougher federal scrutiny than in any of the other five states the Environmental Protection Agency has targeted, and the continuing conflict over new standards will likely end up in litigation.

"We are either going to be a plaintiff, a defendant or an intervener," Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman told The Associated Press. "I can't predict right now which one we'll be."

Several DEP employees are attending a meeting with EPA staff in Pittsburgh on Wednesday and Thursday over new water-quality standards imposed April 1 on six states: West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Tennessee. Huffman argues the standards are not only unattainable, but also being unfairly enforced.

"They are wrong on a lot of levels," Huffman said of federal regulators. "... If what EPA is doing is illegal, they will pay the price."

Huffman said his staff will "do more listening and asking questions than talking" to EPA officials. "I can promise you, there will be much that will be said in this two-day meeting that will be held against them later."

EPA spokeswoman Terri White said the guidance was intended to provide a consistent review framework for the regional offices and to prevent "significant and irreversible damage to Appalachian watersheds at risk from mining."

EPA ensures the new standards are applied "fairly and consistently" across the six states by holding weekly conference calls between headquarters and staff in regional offices, she said.

White said this week's meeting, which grew out of an annual meeting of state program managers in May, will include representatives from environmental agencies in West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, as well as officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Office of Surface Mining and the Army Corps of Engineers.

The EPA's new policy, which is open for public comment through Dec. 1, could curtail mountaintop removal mining, a highly efficient and destructive form of strip mining that blasts apart mountaintops to expose multiple seams of coal. The resulting waste is dumped into valleys, covering intermittent streams.

EPA says burying streams increases salt levels in waterways downstream, hurting fish and other aquatic life. It says its new standards would protect 95 percent of aquatic life.

The industry argues the new standards would effectively shut down strip mining, devastating coal companies and communities that depend on the jobs. The National Mining Association says the six targeted states produced more than 150 million tons of coal and employed nearly 20,500 people in 2008.

Huffman said the rules have essentially brought permitting in West Virginia to a halt. Bruce Scott, commissioner of Kentucky's Department for Environmental Protection, said his state is feeling it, too.

More than a dozen Kentucky projects are in limbo, and operators lined up behind them for permit approvals are also forced to wait.

"The practical result is, it's slowed things down considerably," he said.

Kentucky has many more mines than West Virginia, but most are considerably smaller, Scott said. Many have already been forced to shut down and lay off workers.

Kentucky adopted new stream-monitoring requirements in anticipation of new EPA policies, and its system focuses on testing for contaminants after the fact. It gives the Kentucky DEP the ability to revisit permits if testing shows effluent is likely to harm water quality or aquatic life.

"The difference, then, is that EPA's approach presumes an impact," Scott said. "The Kentucky approach says, 'Let's determine whether there's an impact, then go back and assess what to do.'"

Kentucky considers its approach reasonable, but the likelihood of litigation over the federal approach "depends on what EPA's ultimate line in the sand is," Scott said. "One of the avenues ahead for everybody is litigation."

If West Virginia isn't the first state to sue, Huffman said it will quickly follow whoever does - whether it be another state, an industry association or an individual operator affected by the new rules.

While DEP agrees with much of what EPA has to say, Huffman said, "they have taken it to such an extreme that it makes it an impossible standard for the industry to meet.

"The disagreement is not about the big picture," he said. "It's about details."