RPF Releases Longwall Mining/Wetland Report

The Raymond Proffitt Foundation announces the availability of a report prepared by Schmid and Company that documents the failure of the regulatory agencies to protect wetlands and streams from the adverse impacts of longwall mining. This coal mining technique removes all of the coal beneath the surface of the land in a panel that may be 1000 feet wide and 2 miles long. As the coal is removed, the land surface above the mined panel immediately subsides, sometimes by as much as 4 feet, causing streams, springs and wells to go dry, or turning streams with biologically productive pool/riffle/run complexes into on-stream lakes. The subsidence causes enormous damage to wetlands, streams, homes, highways, wells, gas lines, water lines, and other infrastructure. To date the coal companies have undermined about 100,000 acres of southwestern Pennsylvania using this high-extraction technique, which means that the water resources of an entire region are at risk.

Unfortunately the damage to aquatic resources does not have to happen. As the report documents, the DEP’s mining regulations provide clear guidance to the operators that they "shall, to the extent possible, using the best technology currently available, minimize disturbances and adverse impacts of the activities on fish, wildlife and related environmental values..."

Ironically, there is more regulatory protection for the aquatic resources of the Commonwealth than for homes, wells and highways damaged by longwall mining. However, regardless of the regulatory constraints imposed on longwall mining, the companies are free to adversely affect stream and wetlands, without any action taken by the Department of Environmental Protection.

As is customary with longwall mining, the costs of the adverse impacts to the aquatic ecosystem are imposed on the environment, on the residents of the coal fields, and on Pennsylvania taxpayers who have long been obliged to clean up the environmental damage from coal mining, instead of the coal mine operators themselves.