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 problems 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
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