blems on water supply issues.
- Ben Stout, a biology professor at Wheeling Jesuit University of Wheeling, W.Va., said his studies of streams in the Pennsylvania longwall mining area show waterways suffering lasting and sometimes irreparable damage. Streams that have been longwalled, he said, have fewer or different organisms living in them, while some ponds never recovered from mining underneath.
- Residents of Greene and Washington counties, near the West Virginia line, say longwall mining caused the rupture of a dam at Greene County's Ryerson Station State Park. Whether Consol operations damaged the park will go to state court.
2013 Consol settlement
In December 2012, Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) sent a letter to Consol Energy stating its longwall mining operations in the state had irreparably damaged six streams. The DEP called further remediation attempts “futile,” and demanded the company compensate “for the loss of Commonwealth resources." All six of the streams had suffered “flow loss” from Consol’s Bailey Mine, and In 2005, the Ryerson State Park lost its 62-acre Duke Lake when its dam cracked after a longwall machine had moved beneath the park. In April 2013, the DEP announced a multi-million-dollar settlement with Consol to repair the dam and re-open the lake.
Citizen groups working on longwall
- The Hidden Costs of Clean Coal: The Environmental and Human Disaster of Longwall Mining, Center for Public Integrity website, accessed 1/09
- "Longwall Mining", Office of Coal, Nuclear, Electric and Alternate Fuels, U.S. Department of Energy, March 1995, pages 9-10.
- A. Paxton, J. A. Biggs, "Ten Minutes in a Coal Mine", 1940, Pages 16-24
- Greg A. Brick, "Iowa Underground", Big Earth Publishing, 2004, pages 119-120
- The Last Pony Mine, a documentary film, Les Benedict, director, Steve Knudston, producer, 1972. Available on YouTube in 3 parts part 1part 2part 3
- "Longwall Mining" EIA Report, March 1995
- "Underground Mining" Illinois Coal Association, accessed November 2009
- "Positive and negative impacts of longwall mine subsidence on a sandstone aquifer" Environmental Geology Volume 34, Numbers 2-3, May, 1998: p. 223
- "The Dangers of Longwall Mining to Our Water" Sierra Club Hearing Alert, August 2009
- Bob Drogin and Nicole Santa Cruz,"25 miners killed in West Virginia explosion" LA Times, April 6, 2010.
- See Longwall mining and Citizens Coal Council for further information on impacts.
- "Underground production by state and mining method, 2009," Energy Information Administration
- "Longwall Mining," Table 4: Average Mining Height of Longwall Units, by State and Region, Energy Information Administration, DOE/EIA-TR-0588, March 1995
- "Coal statistics," World Coal Insitute, accessed October 7, 2010
- "International Energy Statistics," U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed October 7, 2010
- Syd S. Peng, "Understanding the Chinese Coal Industry," Coal Age, August 26, 2010
- S.D. Floor and J.J. Leeming, "Recent developments in longwall mining entry development, and room and pillar systems," Gospodarka Surowcami Mineralnymi, 2008
- Jackson Adams, "Longwall mining damages land near Hillsboro" Jackson Times, August 5, 2010.
- Jeff Biggers, "Big Coal’s Dirty Secret: Breakthrough New Study on Longwall Mining Regulatory Failure and Ruin in Pennsylvania" AlterNet, April 18, 2011.
- Don Hopey, "State report details longwall mining damage" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 05, 2011.
- Manuel Quinones, "Reports of Property Damage Mount as Longwall Mining for Coal Proliferates in Pa." NY Times, September 29, 2011.
- Kristen Lombardi, "New scrutiny of 'longwall' mining finds damage in Pennsylvania streams," CPI, June 21, 2013.
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- The Hidden Costs of Clean Coal: The Environmental and Human Disaster of Longwall Mining,