Longwall Update
                                                          by Mark Hersh

In late March 2003, we completed a 15 minute film entitled "Subsided Ground... Fallen Futures." The film, by Pittsburgh reporter and filmmaker Terri Taylor, is meant to briefly show some of the problems with the current situation and offer some solutions. We have already presented the film to decision-makers, watershed groups, and statewide conservation organizations. We will be showing the film quite frequently throughout 2003, and some events will be preceded by a media publicity campaign. See the RPF website or call me at 576-2192 if you would like a copy of the film (for a nominal charge as duplication and mailing costs means we cannot provide each RPF member with a free copy).

Pennsylvania DEP has identified a number of streams damaged by mining activities, but restoration efforts on these streams seems to have been left to the whim of the coal companies. We will continue to advocate to DEP and politicians that damaged streams be restored by the coal companies as well as they can be. We also point out to DEP and the US Office of Surface Mining any other streams that are damaged by mining as we find them (and we are finding them).

We continue to comment on mining permit applications. In late 2002, the Environmental Hearing Board affirmed that the state’s Clean Streams Law applies to subsidence effects of underground mining. Now the trick is to see if DEP actually does it, or if they simply continue to issue mining permits that result in subsided streams and dried up springs, but now claim that this complies with the Clean Streams Law. Our position is that coal companies should be held to the same standards as surface owners or any other citizen is held. That does not allow the indiscriminate drying up of small waterbodies, or creating long sluggish pools in the larger streams. We have been and will continue to work with other groups on this effort.

DEP released in late December a report saying that undermining was not hurting property values nor the overall tax base in Greene and Washington counties. While we didn’t think that passed the "laugh test," I don’t have the expertise to review it properly (I’m an aquatic biologist, after all). So we are currently in discussions with a consulting firm specializing in land use and economics to review the report (at a greatly reduced rate from what they would normally charge) We think this is worth the effort because a preliminary look by a Pittsburgh realtor indicates some problems with the report’s methods and conclusions. An objective critique of this report is needed before we can credibly counter the ideas put forth in the DEP report (which cost over $110,000 of our tax dollars).

And we continue to help citizens and local groups that have to deal, day in and day out, with the horrors of being undermined. Sometimes we have information they need and sometimes we don’t, but we know where to send them. In either case, they are glad to know that RPF cares about what is happening to them.

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