Latest news with #SurfaceMiningControlandReclamationAct
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Gauley River named one of the country's most endangered rivers
(WBOY) — West Virginia's Gauley River was recently named the 10th most endangered river in the United States by American Rivers, a clean water advocacy group. American Rivers puts out yearly lists of the country's most threatened rivers, but this is the third time in a row that a West Virginia river has made it onto the list; the Blackwater River was included in 2024 due to the possible impact Corridor H construction could have on the area, and the Ohio River was included in 2023 due to pollution and discharges of toxic chemicals. This year, the Gauley River was included due to a South Fork Coal Company mine operation that American Rivers has said poses a significant threat to water quality in the area. 'Since 2019, the company has released heavy metals and sediment — exceeding legal limits by up to 900 percent — into the Cherry River on at least 80 documented occasions,' the report says. 'In addition, the company is trucking over 100,000 tons of coal annually from the more than 1,100-acre Rocky Run Surface Mine across the Monongahela National Forest each year — an action that plainly violates federal law.' The Rocky Run Surface Mine is located in the southern part of the Monongahela National Forest, which is technically outlawed by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, and American Rivers has said the mine doesn't have the rights necessary to operate in the area. For the full report on all 10 rivers highlighted in 2025, you can visit the American Rivers website here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
West Virginia's Gauley River among the nation's most endangered, conservation organization says
A kayaker navigates the turbulent waters of the Gauley River in Summersville, on Sept. 30, 2020. American Rivers has named the Gauley River No. 10 on its list of most endangered rivers. (Getty Images) West Virginia's Gauley River has been named to a conservation organization's list of the most endangered rivers in the country this year. The river is 10th on the list of America's Most Endangered Rivers for 2025. The river is threatened by coal mining pollution in one of its tributaries, the Cherry River, according to the organization. Each year, American Rivers sets the list of rivers that face a major decision that the public can influence. The list is based on the significance of the river to people and wildlife, and the magnitude of the threat. The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and Appalachian Voices is suing the South Fork Coal Company, which operates more than 3,000 acres of surface mines in Greenbrier and Pocahontas counties outside the Monongahela National Forest, over alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. The mines have violated water pollution standards at least 80 documented times since 2019, releasing sediment and toxic heavy metals into the river, according to a news release. The groups have challenged the U.S. Forest Service decision to grant the company access to use a national forest road as a haul road without complying with environmental protection laws. The company was first granted access to the road in 2013 based on an application that falsely claimed it did not cross into the forest, said Olivia Miller, program director for the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy. The access was renewed in 2018 and 2023. The company has been permitted to operate the Rocky Run Surface Mine, the mine at the center of the lawsuits over pollution, since 2021. The road was temporarily shut down, but reopened after the company appealed to the Department of Interior, Miller said. The environmental groups' lawsuits have been stayed after the coal company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in February. 'We're waiting to see what happens with the bankruptcy proceedings. So this could be tied up in court for years, and meanwhile, they are still hauling coal,' Miller said. The Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and and Enforcement (OSMRE) has a public comment period underway now about the coal company's request for a valid existing rights determination to continue using the road. Mining activity in the national forest is prohibited, exempt for a few exemptions. 'For four years, this company has illegally operated within the Monongahela National Forest,' Willie Dodson, coal impacts program manager at Appalachian Voices said in a news release. 'Now, having just declared bankruptcy, South Fork Coal is asking regulators to retroactively validate this activity. It's unacceptable. If they get away with it, I shudder to think what the next encroachment by the coal industry into our public land will be. Are they going to strip Spruce Knob? Are they going to put a sludge dam at Cranberry Glades? This is the time to draw a line in the sand.' Miller said the river being added to the endangered list will help alert policy makers and the public of the river's plight. 'The Gauley's listing specifically will hopefully draw national attention to ongoing problems that we're seeing with this company and encourage the public and policymakers to step up before any more irreversible harm occurs in this sensitive area,' Miller said. 'We are asking OSMRE to deny the after-the-fact request that the company can continue using this road,' Miller said. 'So right now, we need as much public comment as possible to pressure the OSMRE to deny their valid existing rights request.' A representative of South Fork Coal Company could not immediately be reached for comment. The Gauley River draws tens of thousands of white water rafters each year for its world class rapids. The river and its tributaries are also popular fishing destinations. Miller said pollution puts the river's recreation opportunities at risk. 'The outcome of this valid existing rights determination will reverberate far beyond West Virginia, and I think will really set a precedent for better or for worse on mining and public lands,' Miller said. 'And I really don't believe that the people of West Virginia want to see the Monongahela National Forest impacted or mined. As somebody who grew up in the Mon in Tucker County, that would be just completely devastating and earth shattering for me to see happen in my lifetime. 'So now is the time for people to come together and protect our outdoor recreation economy and activities like rafting, fishing and hiking, hunting that people from West Virginia love, and these are activities that thrive on clean, healthy ecosystems,' Miller said. The Gauley River listing comes days after President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders meant to bolster the nation's struggling coal industry. The orders allow some older coal-fired power plants set for retirement to keep operating and directs federal agencies to lift barriers to coal mining and prioritize coal leasing on U.S. lands. 'Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels,' Miller said. 'Even though most of our state leaders would like to ignore climate change, we cannot ignore it any longer and this push to 'bring back coal' is only going to cause more pain and suffering for people in West Virginia and across the world,' she said. 'And I think the recent executive orders really exemplifies the tension between efforts to bolster domestic coal production again and the need to protect public lands and water resources.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Alabama official says methane ‘likely' caused fatal home explosion in Oak Grove
The rubble of W.M. Griffice's home after an explosion above a longwall coal mine on March 8, 2024, in Oak Grove, Ala. (Courtesy of the Alabama Fire Marshal's Office) This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. OAK GROVE — For the first time, an Alabama official has said that a fatal March 2024 home explosion above an expanding longwall mine in the central part of the Yellowhammer State was 'likely' caused by the ignition of methane, a gas produced in the mining of coal. The revelation came in a letter from Kathy Love, director of one of the state's mining oversight agencies, to federal officials who had demanded state regulators act to mitigate the risk of escaping methane in the wake of the March blast that led to the death of Oak Grove resident W.M. Griffice. Love had refused to release a copy of the letter, but Inside Climate News obtained the document—the state's only formal response to an unprecedented regulatory action by the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement—through a Freedom of Information Act request of federal officials. Both state and federal officials had previously avoided attributing the explosion to escaping methane, despite the continued release of the potentially explosive gas at the site of Griffice's home, which was completely destroyed in the blast. A state fire marshal's investigation into the explosion had deemed the cause of the blast 'undetermined.' In court documents related to a wrongful death suit filed by Griffice's family, lawyers for Crimson Oak Grove Resources, the operators of the mine, have denied the private coal company is responsible for the explosion or Griffice's death. The coal company did not respond to requests for comment on this story. In the letter dated Jan. 14, Love suggested that the home explosion was a tragedy that could not have been envisioned by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act , the 1977 federal law governing longwall mining in the United States. 'The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) was written to protect the public and environment from hazards created by coal mining,' Love wrote. 'And yet in 1977 the authors of the SMCRA regulations could not have envisioned all circumstances that might result in danger to the public. Such was the discovery of an uncapped abandoned well under Mr. Griffice's home emitting methane gas that likely caused the tragic event of March 8, 2024.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX An Inside Climate News investigation revealed last year that Alabama residents have complained about the risks of methane explosions above coal mines for decades. 'Currently we are living in fear of gas escaping from the underground mines and causing an explosion or burns,' one Alabamian wrote in a letter to regulators in September 1999. 'There have been people killed who were above longwall mines.' Another coalfield resident, Bobby Snow, put it more colorfully at the time. 'You can go down there and play or go down there and hunt, but don't smoke or you'll be standing in your smutty underwear wondering what the heck happened because the methane gas is coming up out the ground,' he told regulators 25 years ago. Longwall mining involves a large machine shearing swaths of coal hundreds of feet underground, releasing methane gas and leaving vast underground caverns that collapse once mining has moved on. That collapse, experts say, causes subsidence, or the sinking of the land above, a process that often damages surface structures like homes or businesses. Fissures in the land above the mined area can also provide a path of escape for the methane released during mining. It's that escaping methane that Griffice's family claims was the cause of the explosion that left their loved one dead. Oak Grove Mine has been labelled by experts as one of the 'gassiest' in the country. Specific risks posed by water wells above coal mines have also been on the regulatory radar for years. Federal regulators published a technical manual on how to deal with gassy wells in 2011, well over a decade before Love wrote that such risks were largely unforeseeable. Federal regulators pointed Alabama regulators to the manual, which had already been highlighted by Inside Climate News, in their communications late last year. December's so-called 'ten-day notice' was the first time in the state's history that the Alabama Surface Mining Commission, charged with regulating the surface impacts of underground coal mining in the state, had been put on formal notice by its federal counterpart to force a coal mine's compliance with the law or face further regulatory action. In the ten-day notice, officials with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement wrote that investigators had determined that Oak Grove Mine in western Jefferson County may be out of legal compliance for failing to adequately monitor potentially explosive methane emissions from the mine. The notice by U.S. regulators was issued following a federal inspection of the mine and visits to residences across Oak Grove that came days after an Inside Climate News investigation into federal inaction on the issue. The state's response, reported here for the first time, is the first clear move by state regulators to address concerns over the risks of longwall mining since the March 2024 explosion. State regulators had previously failed to act to address such risks and citizen concerns. It took regulators months to hold a public meeting for citizens to voice those worries, and officials said they had little power to intervene. So far, Alabama legislators have made no move toward proposing legislation to address the issues in Oak Grove, or risks from longwall mining more generally. The inspection report underlying the ten-day notice shows that federal investigators followed in the footsteps of Inside Climate News' reporting on Oak Grove, visiting the Griffice home and the mine as well as the homes of Lisa Lindsay, Clara Riley and Randy Myrick, all residents profiled as part of the newsroom's Undermined series. Love's January response to state regulators also confirmed that state regulators believe they have the power to shut down operations at Oak Grove Mine if they believe there to be an imminent risk to citizens. 'It should be noted that on September 18, 2024, ASMC met with the management of Crimson Oak Grove Resources (Crimson),' she wrote. 'During this meeting, ASMC stressed to Crimson that ASMC had the full authority to shut down the mine unless actions were taken to address the severity of the situation. The management team expressed their understanding and their desire to voluntarily go above and beyond SMCRA required rules and regulations.' Love wrote that because of the risks involved, 'all Alabama underground mine operators should be required to evaluate and strengthen processes for identifying and locating both active and abandoned water wells and implement active methane monitoring processes to further protect public health and safety.' Federal and state regulators will then 'conduct oversight to validate mine operator compliance with revised procedures,' she wrote, which will be implemented through revisions to subsidence plans required for all Alabama underground mine operators. Oak Grove Mine has had a checkered safety history below ground. The mine ended 2024 with a record 870 safety citations and orders, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, totalling more than $1 million dollars in penalties, So far, nearly $790,000 of those penalties have gone unpaid. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
