2006-2007 Accomplishments
2006
AML Reauthorization: CCC joined watershed groups across Pennsylvania on a campaign to alert county commissioners of the need to extend the AML fee collection beyond the June 2006 sunset date. CCC met with Washington County Commissioners in Pennsylvania in April and obtained a signed resolution urging Congress to reauthorize the collection of fees through 2026.
The campaign to reauthorize AML funding, begun in 2003, finally produced a bill reauthorizing AML funding. The reauthorization bill provides less reclamation than coalfield citizens campaigned for and deserve, but we did get reauthorization for 15 years (to 2021) but with reduced tonnage fees (not enough to fund remediating the entire inventory of AML sites). The work of CCC, its members and allies over the years was critical in convincing Congress that there was a lot of need as well as political support for reauthorizing AML.
Crafting Local Ordinances: CCC partnered with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) in coordinating efforts among several townships in Washington and Greene County, PA in adopting self-governing and anti-corporate mining ordinances.
Mine Permit Application Reviews: CCC is also assisting residence with the review of mining applications and coordinating efforts with public hearings and demanding that the Department of Environmental Protection provide a meeting format that will ensure that all comments and testimony be heard by everyone in attendance.
Longwall Mining: Through collaboration with Tri-State Citizens Mining Network, Mountain Watershed Association, and Ten Mile Protection Network, Citizens Coal Council helped organize and provide tour guide services to 17 Environmental students and 2 faculty members from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. The students and faculty were able to experience first hand the damage and devastation to the streams, homes and communities from longwall mining. Because of this experience many of the students wrote letters to Katie McGinty, Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection in Pennsylvania, demanding to know why the Department of Environmental protection is allowing the degradation of the streams and springs in Washington and Greene County in Pennsylvania.
CCC worked collaboratively with Tri-State Citizens Mining Network, Mountain Watershed, Ten Mile Protection Network and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy on numerous informational community meetings in Pennsylvania and West Virginia on longwall mining issues.
PPW Report: The report, Managing Coal Combustion Residues in Mines, released by the National Academies of Science on March 1, 2006, called for enforceable standards on disposal of power plant wastes in mines. Overall, this report represents a huge victory. It points out that many of the current requirements at mine disposal sites cannot adequately protect human health and the environment and that improvements can only be achieved through federal standards. This report appears to vindicate all of us who have been saying for years that better standards were needed at mine disposal sites, and we should definitely be presenting the results to the press and local and state officials.
CCC aided a citizen in Brandywine, Maryland who requested assistance in preparing for a presentation in front of Prince George’s County hearing examiner opposing a fly ash dump in Brandywine. With the help of Citizens Coal Council, Solomon Majid prepared and presented an 8-page report (Why We Oppose the Approval of Special Exception 4520) to the hearing board. Solomon has requested the continued help of Citizens Coal Council with organizing citizens around the issue.
Blasting: Mountain Watershed Association and the Kentucky Resources Council, Inc. commented on a proposed amendment to the Pennsylvania Regulatory Program (25 Pa. Code 87.127) purporting to “clarify the requirements for shaft and slope development and other issues relating to blasting at a mine site.” They are concerned that the categorical waiving of the obligation to conduct blasting between sunrise and sunset and at times in the blasting schedule, by allowing blasting at any time of night or day after a second blast “as necessary to maintain stability of the mine opening to protect the health and safety of mineworkers” is overbroad, and lacks a reasoned basis.
Valid Existing Rights: The District Court for the District of Columbia finally decided NMA v Kempthorne, CCC, et al, in favor of the narrow definition of valid existing rights, ruling that the Department of Interior (DOI) regulation does not amount to a taking without due process. This court decision makes it harder for coal operators to establish “valid existing rights” to evade the ‘no mining’ provisions of SMCRA, Section 522(e) that protects homes, churches, cemeteries, public parks and wilderness areas from mining. The National Mining Association (NMA) appealed to the DC Circuit Court.
2007
Mountain Top Removal: Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Coal River Mountain Watch, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, et al, won an injunction against Army Corps of Engineers permits allowing a mine operator to fill streams with mine spoil material contrary to the CWA.
CCC restructures and rebuilds.
AML Reauthorization: CCC joined watershed groups across Pennsylvania on a campaign to alert county commissioners of the need to extend the AML fee collection beyond the June 2006 sunset date. CCC met with Washington County Commissioners in Pennsylvania in April and obtained a signed resolution urging Congress to reauthorize the collection of fees through 2026.
The campaign to reauthorize AML funding, begun in 2003, finally produced a bill reauthorizing AML funding. The reauthorization bill provides less reclamation than coalfield citizens campaigned for and deserve, but we did get reauthorization for 15 years (to 2021) but with reduced tonnage fees (not enough to fund remediating the entire inventory of AML sites). The work of CCC, its members and allies over the years was critical in convincing Congress that there was a lot of need as well as political support for reauthorizing AML.
Crafting Local Ordinances: CCC partnered with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) in coordinating efforts among several townships in Washington and Greene County, PA in adopting self-governing and anti-corporate mining ordinances.
Mine Permit Application Reviews: CCC is also assisting residence with the review of mining applications and coordinating efforts with public hearings and demanding that the Department of Environmental Protection provide a meeting format that will ensure that all comments and testimony be heard by everyone in attendance.
Longwall Mining: Through collaboration with Tri-State Citizens Mining Network, Mountain Watershed Association, and Ten Mile Protection Network, Citizens Coal Council helped organize and provide tour guide services to 17 Environmental students and 2 faculty members from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. The students and faculty were able to experience first hand the damage and devastation to the streams, homes and communities from longwall mining. Because of this experience many of the students wrote letters to Katie McGinty, Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection in Pennsylvania, demanding to know why the Department of Environmental protection is allowing the degradation of the streams and springs in Washington and Greene County in Pennsylvania.
CCC worked collaboratively with Tri-State Citizens Mining Network, Mountain Watershed, Ten Mile Protection Network and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy on numerous informational community meetings in Pennsylvania and West Virginia on longwall mining issues.
PPW Report: The report, Managing Coal Combustion Residues in Mines, released by the National Academies of Science on March 1, 2006, called for enforceable standards on disposal of power plant wastes in mines. Overall, this report represents a huge victory. It points out that many of the current requirements at mine disposal sites cannot adequately protect human health and the environment and that improvements can only be achieved through federal standards. This report appears to vindicate all of us who have been saying for years that better standards were needed at mine disposal sites, and we should definitely be presenting the results to the press and local and state officials.
CCC aided a citizen in Brandywine, Maryland who requested assistance in preparing for a presentation in front of Prince George’s County hearing examiner opposing a fly ash dump in Brandywine. With the help of Citizens Coal Council, Solomon Majid prepared and presented an 8-page report (Why We Oppose the Approval of Special Exception 4520) to the hearing board. Solomon has requested the continued help of Citizens Coal Council with organizing citizens around the issue.
Blasting: Mountain Watershed Association and the Kentucky Resources Council, Inc. commented on a proposed amendment to the Pennsylvania Regulatory Program (25 Pa. Code 87.127) purporting to “clarify the requirements for shaft and slope development and other issues relating to blasting at a mine site.” They are concerned that the categorical waiving of the obligation to conduct blasting between sunrise and sunset and at times in the blasting schedule, by allowing blasting at any time of night or day after a second blast “as necessary to maintain stability of the mine opening to protect the health and safety of mineworkers” is overbroad, and lacks a reasoned basis.
Valid Existing Rights: The District Court for the District of Columbia finally decided NMA v Kempthorne, CCC, et al, in favor of the narrow definition of valid existing rights, ruling that the Department of Interior (DOI) regulation does not amount to a taking without due process. This court decision makes it harder for coal operators to establish “valid existing rights” to evade the ‘no mining’ provisions of SMCRA, Section 522(e) that protects homes, churches, cemeteries, public parks and wilderness areas from mining. The National Mining Association (NMA) appealed to the DC Circuit Court.
2007
Mountain Top Removal: Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Coal River Mountain Watch, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, et al, won an injunction against Army Corps of Engineers permits allowing a mine operator to fill streams with mine spoil material contrary to the CWA.
CCC restructures and rebuilds.