Long-Wall Mining

Photo by Steven Sunshine, The Center for Public Integrity.

For years, mining companies in Pennsylvania have claimed that long-wall mining has limited impact on surface structures. Disputing this claim, environmentalists looked at the collapse of a dam in Ryerson Station State Park as an example of damage caused by long-wall mining. The Dept. of Environmental Protection has now acknowledged that this mining practice was indeed responsible for the collapse. As pointed out in the following account, this DEP finding could affect how the state will regulate long-wall mining in the future.
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Gas drilling rig.
Photo - P. Coleman

If you wanted a free hand to drill with impunity for Pennsylvania’s buried oil and gas, you must have had an inner smile when you read about what was in the state’s budget.

DEP: A cut of $56 million or 26.7% in the Department of Environment Protection’s budget. This could lead to the loss of 300 staff positions. This is at a time when the DEP needs MORE qualified employees to ensure that Marcellus shale drilling is done with strict environmental controls.

Oil & Gas Fund: A shift of $143 million from the Oil and Gas Lease Fund to the General Fund. This fund was established in 1955 to use leases for the oil and gas operations on state forest lands to be used for conservation, recreation, dams, and flood control.

State Forest Leasing Mandate: Accompanying the budget bill is a separate requirement regarding the Oil and Gas Fund. To achieve future raids on the Oil And Gas Fund of $60 million in 2009-10 and $180 million in 2010-11, the Dept. of Natural Resources and Conservation is required to lease sufficient state forest land to produce the target drilling revenues.

Severance Fee: What the legislature failed to do was impose a new severance fee on natural gas production, a fee that is needed to fund proper protection of the environment from harmful drilling practices. This pass on a severance tax is a clear illustration of the power of the oil and gas industry, as explained in an extensive Philadelphia Inquirer report. Pennsylvania is the only gas-producing state without such a severance fee.

A major environmental impact of coal mining is damage to Western Pennsylvania’s streams.   Two items appeared this past week.

The first item illustrates the influence of the coal industry in the state legislature. On July 27, the PA House Environment and Energy Resources committee passed HB 1847 by a vote of 18-2. This bill allows CONSOL Energy to create coal refuse disposal areas (CRDAs or gob piles) that would fill nearly 5 miles of streams and more than 5 acres of wetlands in the area of Owens Run in Indiana County. HB 1847 now moves to the Appropriations Committee.

If your representative is on the Appropriations Committee, contact them and ask them not to support HB1847.

The second item is a report that studies of the fish populations and aquatic life in three small creeks in Greene County support the reassessment of these creeks from “high quality warm water fisheries” to “exceptional value” — the state’s highest, most protective designation. The three creeks are House Run, Hoge Run and McCourtney Run, all tributaries of the South Fork of Tenmile Creek. The studies were commissioned by the Center for Coalfield Justice, Mountain Watershed Association, and PennFuture.

A recent determination by the DEP providing immediate “exceptional value” protection to several of these streams strongly suggests that studies conducted by the DEP were consistent with the studies submitted by the three environmental groups.

The problem is that the Department of Environmental Protection’s reassessment of these three creeks runs counter to Foundation Mining company’s application to the DEP for a new underground longwall mine under the streams.  All too often, longwall mining causes subsidence in the streams’ watersheds and affects surface water quality.

While Mountain Top Removal is devastating West Virginia and Kentucky, long-wall mining is having its own miserable impact here in southwest Pennsylvania.

One of the largest long-wall mines in Pennsylvania is Consol Energy’s Bailey Mine near Crabtree in Greene County. In 2006 this mine produced 10.2 million tons of coal. How that coal was mined is shown in a 7-minute video with the following introduction:

“After investigating the surface impacts of longwall mining, Center for Public Integrity reporter Kristen Lombardi went underground to witness the coal extraction method first hand. Led by representatives of Consol Energy and accompanied by photographer Steven Sunshine, Lombardi toured the 9-I panel of Bailey Mine, operating near Wind Ridge, Pennsylvania. Bailey Mine is more than twice the size of the city of Pittsburgh and is the third-largest bituminous colliery in the United States, snaking below the surface for 144 square miles.”

A second video at the same website illustrates the types of damage produced by long-wall mining.

By Phil Coleman, Chair, Mining Committee, Allegheny Group

In recent years, West Virginia has been the poster child for coal. In a state that has always been celebrated for its mountains, the  coal industry’s practice of mountain top removal is so overtly damaging that one or two pictures are all that is needed to persuade. Cutting away a mountain top of stone and clay to retrieve the narrow veins of coal beneath is such an obviously destructive practice that you don’t even have to know about the miles of streams that are destroyed in the process to be outraged.

Pennsylvania is not a poster child. Most mining damage is hidden away, out of sight. But it is damage nevertheless.

Pennsylvania’s heritage over the past century and a half is one of bad mining practices. Scars rule the landscape in the eastern anthracite regions where miles of spoil stand barren and unreclaimed. Gob piles loom like barren mountains in southwestern Pennsylvania, reminders of the history of bituminous room and pillar mining. Thousands of miles of streams run acid because of bad surface and deep mining practices.

Throughout the state the coal industry now proclaims itself “Green and Clean,” but it is not. It claims that it no longer damages the landscape, that it doesn’t destroy streams, that it repairs any damage to houses to the satisfaction of the owners. Its claim is that longwall mining will cause subsidence so quickly and evenly that nothing is harmed.

But the truth is that longwall mining is destructive in many ways. It cracks houses, sometimes irreparably. It damages roads and highways. It breaks gas and water lines. It dries springs and wetlands and destroys streams.

Consider Roy and Diane Brendels’ historic home in Greene County. After six years of torturous attempts to shore it up and stop the cracks, the mining company, Consol Energy, finally paid a settlement to the Brendels and tore down their 12-room stone and stucco Spanish Revival home which had been listed in the National Historic Register. The Brendels, worn out by litigation and unable to live in their beautiful old home, had to sign an agreement with Consol not to discuss the settlement in order to receive any recompense. Many believe that Mrs. Brendel’s death at 61 was hastened by the strain and grief she experienced during their ordeal.

Consider the dam at Duke Lake, in Ryerson Station State Park. This dam was cracked by by geologic stress from nearby longwall mining. However, Consol Energy claims that it is not to blame. The state of Pennsylvania is now suing Consol for $50 million.

Consider South Fork, a stream that the Fish Commission stocked with trout each spring. After it was undermined, it went dry and made a subsequent pond downstream.

When damage is done, the mining company begins by denying the damage. Then it claims the damage is only temporary. Finally, it insists that it won’t pay for damage unless the home or farm owner agrees not to discuss the settlement. The industry knows that most damage is out of sight and therefore, out of mind. It knows that in another decade or two, it will have exhausted the available coal and will have left the area, taking its trainloads of wealth with it.

Longwall mining is the new mythology. Decades from now, it will be the old horror story. The industry will say, “We used to damage homes and streams, but we don’t do that any more; we have a new technology that is better than the old.”

Don’t believe it.