water losses and property damage have been raising their concerns with legislators and PADEP for the past 16 years. CCC’s website Longwall Mining states: "Like a slow-moving earthquake, longwall mining damages the complex and interrelated system of groundwater and surface water in streams and watersheds. A typical longwall mining panel is more than 1,000 feet wide and several thousand feet long and is usually between 200 to 800 feet below the surface. As the longwall mining shearer moves forward the roof supports move with it and the ceiling behind the supports collapses, generally 4 to 6 feet, causing ground movement and strata displacement and disrupting groundwater flow by creating cracks and fractures as the overlying rock drops into the void left after the coal is removed."
Among the investigation’s key findings:
- Lax enforcement of state and federal coal mining laws that protect hydrologic balance, including the Cumulative Hydrologic Impact Assessment (CHIA), resulting in stream dewatering and widely-damaged aquatic systems.
- State water quality standards are inadequately enforced, and permit discharge limits are routinely exceeded; for example, the anti-degradation requirements which can protect high quality water resources most at risk from longwall mining damage.
- Longwall mining permits are routinely issued based on inadequate assessments of likely impacts to streams, wetlands, and the hydrologic balance.
- Oversight and enforcement of pre-mining mitigation and post-mining restoration and coal mine reclamation are piecemeal and inadequate, and may in fact be illegal under the Clean Water Act and the PA Clean Streams Law.
2011 Citizens Coal Council report on Act 54
In Pennsylvania, the passage of Act 54 in 1994 altered the state’s 1966 mining regulations from the “prevention of damage from mine subsidence” to “restoration of damage from mine subsidence.” According to a 2011 report by the national Citizens Coal Council - "The Increasing Damage from Underground Coal Mining in Pennsylvania: A Review and Analysis of PADEP’s Third Act 54 Report" - analysis of PA DEP’s five-year review shows longwall mining has become highly destructive and is not compatible with environmental protection, landowner protection, or taxpayer protection. The study examined 50 underground mines across the state and concluded that Act 54 is fundamentally flawed because:
- it allows certain impacts to occur without any compensation or restoration;
- where it requires compensation or restoration, those remedies are incomplete and take long times to be realized, with “resolution” of impacts often partial or incomplete;
- as presently administered by PADEP, the Act appears to be in direct conflict with Article 1, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, as there exists practical alternatives to longwall mining that make its impacts unnecessary.
A 2011 Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection report, based on research done by the University of Pittsburgh, found that 50 underground coal mines were active in the state from 2003 through 2008, but eight of the state's operating longwall mines caused 94 percent of damage done to 456 structures, as well as 89 percent of the land impacts to 108 properties surveyed. During the five years covered by the new report, 683 wells, springs or ponds were damaged by mining subsidence, and 234 of those cases remained unresolved.
The average time to resolve a case involving those water sources was 321 days, almost a year, and considerably longer than the average time for resolution of structure and land damage claims. Mining operations impacted 55 streams, either reducing or stopping the flow of water or changing flow patterns. Flows had been restored on 20 of the streams, but the work took an average of 688 days, almost two years. Other stream damage has not been fixed.
A 2011 NY Times article reported that:
- Schmid & Co., a Wayne, Pa.-based environmental consulting firm hired by the Citizens Coal Council, also found agreements between a mining company and property owners often do not solve pro