Citizens Coal Council and Schmid & Company, Inc., Consulting Ecologists have released Broken Streams, Broken System, Broken Trust: PA DEP’s Failure to Protect Southwestern Pennsylvania from Widespread Longwall Coal Mining Damage.
The report provides an independent review and analysis of Pennsylvania’s Sixth Act 54 Report, which examined the impacts of underground coal mining between 2018 and 2022. Our analysis reveals a troubling gap between the widespread damage documented in mining communities and the limited repair, restoration, and accountability that followed.
Among the findings, only four of the 260 structures with resolved, mining-related damage claims were reported as repaired. The state’s data also document miles of affected streams, recurring water loss and contamination, and long delays in addressing environmental damage. At the same time, outdated tracking systems and incomplete public reporting make it difficult to determine whether many impacts have ever been fully resolved.
For residents of southwestern Pennsylvania, these are not simply statistics. They represent damaged homes, disrupted water supplies, degraded streams, and years of uncertainty for families living above longwall mines.
The report calls on the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to strengthen oversight, improve transparency, track mining impacts through final resolution, and ensure that coal companies fully repair the damage they cause.
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