Obama mountaintop removal decision coming ‘very soon’
Nancy Sutley, who served as Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment for the city of Los Angeles, California since 2005, is Barack Obama’s chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
President Barack Obama’s top aides will be making a decision “very soon” about what they will do about mountaintop removal, according to congressional testimony today from Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Sutley told lawmakers her staff have been meeting with EPA, the Corps of Engineers, the Department of Justice and the Office of Surface Mining, discussing the issue, reviewing the February decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and examining a flood of pending permits at the corps office in Huntington.
“We’re trying to get a handle on what’s out there and what we may be able to do about it,” Sutley told the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies.
During a subcommittee hearing this morning, Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Ky., grilled Sutley about mountaintop removal and the Obama administration’s plans for dealing with it. Chandler has been a critics of mountaintop removal, and is among the sponsors of the Clean Water Protection Act, legislation to overturn Bush administration changes to the “fill rule” that benefited the mining industry.
According to a transcript kindly provided to me by Jonathan Strong at the publication Inside EPA (Subs Req’d), Sutley told Chandler that Obama officials are looking closely at pending permits, and haven’t decided whether they should go forward or not:
Whether all of the permits are created equal, do they all represent activities that will have significant environmental impact. So that we can focus on the ones that have the most significant environmental impacts and see what the options are for making sure that if they do go ahead that we are dealing with the environmental impacts.
Sutley indicated that CEQ is trying to arbitrate a dispute between EPA, which wants to block these permits, and the corps, which wants to allow mining to go forward.
Here’s the full transcript of the exchange:
Chandler: I’d like to ask you a few questions about mountain top removal. It’s an issue I’m sure you’re familiar with and there are a number of people in the Appalachian mountain chain who are very concerned about the shearing off of the tops of mountains, an activity, as you obviously know, affects the landscape forever. Also the impact on drinking water that is a fairly strong impact. There is a lot of concern from a lot of people who live downstream about the quality of their drinking water. During the election President Obama expressed serious concerns about this. But since he’s been elected a fourth circuit decision came down in February which basically allowed this practice to carry on. It had been held in abeyance prior to that decision. There are some permits I think that are moving forward right now. Are you aware that mountain top removal mining is moving forward now into mines in West Virginia.
Sutley: We’ve had the opportunity since the fourth circuit decision to sit down with the agencies that are involved in this process, trying to, first of all understand the status of the permits that were the specific focus of the circuit court and the district court decisions, as well as the status of all the permits that were as you said, held in abeyance as those issues were going through the court. So trying to understand how many there were, where they are and where in the process they are. And we’ve had a number of discussions with the army corps of engineers and with EPA and with the department of justice and with the office of surface mining to understand where we are in the process and to try to now begin the process of identifying which permits are furthest along in the process and which permits represent projects with the most significant environmental impact. We’re trying to get a handle on what’s out there and what we may be able to do about it.
Chandler: What is the administration’s attitude toward this? Does the administration have a position on the going forward of these permits?
Sutley: Whether all of the permits are created equal, do they all represent activities that will have significant environmental impact. So that we can focus on the ones that have the most significant environmental impacts and see what the options are for making sure that if they do go ahead that we are dealing with the environmental impacts.
Chandler: Well its my understanding that the EPA is in favor of them not going ahead and there’s a dispute there with the corps of engineers may be in favor of them going ahead. And isn’t it the role of the CEQ to arbitrate when there is some dispute amongst the agencies?
Sutley: It is.
Chandler: Are you going to arbitrate?
Sutley: Yes that’s what we’re doing right now.
Chandler: Do you know that there is a bit of an urgency to this?
Sutley: Yes, we recognize there is an urgency and we’ve had several meetings with both the corps and the epa already and we met this week with some representatives from the communities affected by that and have had some other meetings as well. So we are aware of the urgency and we are trying to get to a solution very quickly.
Chandler: And you know that every day that passes things are put in place that cannot be reversed?
Sutley: Yes sir.
Chandler: Do we expect some decision from the CEQ soon
Sutley: Yes, very soon
Chandler: I suppose you can’t be more specific than that right now.
Sutley: not right now.
34 comments
This seems absurd. Barak Obama had promised to end MTR while campaigning, and yet none of his staff seems to know much of anything about the situation on the ground. There response is weak, proposing only arbitration for for some unexplained mitigation, “if the ones that have the most significant environmental impacts go forward”.
If the DEQ won’t stop the worst of the pending MTR permits, those on Coal River Mountain and Cherry Pond Mountain what hope is there for any of remaining peaks in the rest of West Virginia, and just how do you mitigate a strip mine on a mountain top? And what of the active permits? This would provide little relief for Kayford Mountain, Edwhite and many other places.
While disipointed, one thing now seems certain; the fate of Mountain Top Removal has been placed in President Obama’s hands. He has the power to end MTR now and he should, because to do otherwise will make him directly responsible for the damage companies like Massey are doing to West Virginia each and every day.
Thanks for this update. As a person that lives with the impacts of strip mining/mountaintop removal, It makes me wonder if Sutley and the CEQ really understands the impacts of strip mining as per her statement to ” see what the options are for making sure that if they do go ahead that we are dealing with the environmental impacts”. There is still no mention of dealing with the blasting and air pollution that we residents must endure. Stream mitigation and planting tress does not negate the destruction of our homes, health and culture. I am very concerned about the Obama administration’s mixed messages.
People all over this nation are appalled by the devastation mountaintop removal mining is doing to the land, air, and our headwaters. The Appalachia Mountains are a treasure to all Americans. Some the oldest, and most diversified mountain ranges in the world, and we’re blowing them up with hundreds of tons of explosives everyday. [EDITED — to delete incorrect statements about the miles of streams buried and the number of jobs lost. KEN] The majority of Americans, including West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee, oppose this method of mining. The coal industry wants to take the coal miner, out of coal mining, and replace them with machinery and explosives, and in the process, wipe out an entire culture of people. Mountaintop removal kills, and poisons families. If democracy is for the people, and by the people, then this administration will stop these atrocities today
Thanks to Chandler. I’ll give Nancy Sutley a million dollars if she can find an MTR site without significant environmental impact. Please. But Rep. Chandler definitely deserves praise for his great questions here.
Readers — I’ve edited the comments from mountainsaver because they contained inaccurate statements of fact — inaccurate statements, actually, that a lot of folks from the environmental community insist on repeating over and over.
So, let’s get two things straight:
1. The figure cited by this Coal Tattoo reader for the miles of streams buried by mountaintop removal — 1,500 miles — is incorrect.
As I wrote earlier this week, the correct figure is about half of that, 724 miles. See the story at http://wvgazette.com/News/Mining+the+Mountains/200903170785.
That figure comes from the draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement released in 2003. The study explains that 724 miles of streams were buried by valley fills between 1985 and 2001. It lists a separate number — 1,200 miles of streams — “directly impacts” by mining. But that is a figure for the miles of streams buried by mining — it includes a variety of other impacts. Here’s the full statement from the EIS:
Approximately 1200 miles of headwater streams (or 2% of the streams in the study area) were directly impacted by MTM/VF features including coal removal areas, valley fills, roads, and ponds between 1992 and 2002. An estimated 724 stream miles (1.2 % of streams) were covered by valley fills from 1985 to 2001. Certain watersheds were more impacted by MTM/VF than others.
Here’s the link:
http://www.epa.gov/region3/mtntop/pdf/executivesummary.pdf. See the bottom of page ES-3, top of page ES-4.
There’s more about the details of these figures here:
http://www.epa.gov/region3/mtntop/pdf/III_affected-envt-consequences.pdf
Folks, the numbers are already big (though they probably under-estimate the impacts), so why do environmentalists insist on inflating their figures?
2. The figure of 130,00o jobs lost to mountaintop removal (by switching to mountaintop removal from deep mining) is just wrong. Yes, there are tens of thousands fewer coal miners today than the 1950s and 1960s. But the decline can’t be attributed only to mountaintop removal (as this reader suggested). Mechanization of the underground mining industry played a very large role as well.
Let’s stick to the facts, folks.
Ken.
Readers,
There have also been several posts (some of them deleted because they were trolling) that have cited figures for the amount of U.S. electricity that comes from mountaintop removal coal.
Well, that of course depends on how you define “mountaintop removal”. There’s the strict definition (as set out in SMCRA, http://www.osmre.gov/topic/SMCRA/SMCRA.shtm) and there’s the broader definition most people would use in describing all large-scale strip mines in Appalachia.
The federal government (and the coal industry) have decided to call that “mountaintop mining,” which I guess they think is a much nicer phrase.
In any event, there is one estimate out there that I’ve seen for the amount of coal that comes from “mountaintop mining” in Appalachia. It was included in a Washington Post story, http://tinyurl.com/6axfyn, and as I understand it, was calculated by the National Mining Association:
Mountaintop mining, which yields 130 million tons of coal a year and accounts for 10 percent of the nation’s coal production.
Keep in mind when looking at that…40 percent of the nation’s coal is produced in Wyoming, almost all of it at surface mines that are not mountaintop removal operations.
Ken Ward Jr.
About the Capitol coal protest: from Scot Parkin at Coal is dirty The previous week our mass organizing led to speaker Polosi and senate majority leader Harry Reid to try and pre-empt our action by calling for a removal of coal from fuel mix of the plant. (NOT) good enough, natural gas is still a fossil fuel harming communites around the country. But this action was not about that one plant, its about ALL the coal plants , the coal mines, the natural gas terminals, the oil refineries and the rest of the fossil fuel infrastruture. And , yes Mr Parkin. I think “moast” of us get it. Still think its only about M T R Moutainsaver.
Ken and all,
I think you’re right that the numbers are already huge and there’s no need to inflate them. At the same time, it’s also important to have simple talking points and factoids that people can wrap their heads around.
I tend to use a figure of “About 1,000 miles of streams buried” based on the 724 mile estimate from OSM and their statement that we could expect an additional 724 miles or so in the next 16 years if mountaintop removal continues on pace, which it has since the estimate was made. Doing the math with OSM’s methodology, we are clearly at 1,000+ miles by 2009.
Based on OSM’s own invitation to extrapolate in the DEIS, I’d think you could feel comfortable with 1,000+ miles of streams buried (blue line streams that is - we all know the actual number is probably somewhat higher if we used a better indicator of stream miles than the USGS blue lines).
Ken, regarding your point about the number of miners, there are in fact several hundred thousand fewer miners today than there were in the 50s and 60s, and nearly all of those losses can be attributed to two things: mechanization and the Clean Air Act of the early 1990s, which shut down nearly all coal mines in the Illinois basin and some in Northern Appalachia due to the high sulfur content of the coal there. That region has seen a rebound now that power plants have installed scrubbers and other technology, so they can use that coal and meet the CA Act’s requirements.
Yes, surface mines employ fewer miners than underground mines do when comparing man-hours worked per ton produced (especially out west) but not that many fewer. Longwalls and other machinery underground are exceedingly efficient in producing vast amounts of coal, especially in thicker seams.
Thanks for posting that link to the WaPo article, Ken - I’ve been trying to track down the source of the NMA numbers for a while.
I would take that NMA estimate of “130 million tons of MTR coal” with a whole lot of salt, by the way, given that there were fewer than 120 million tons produced in Central Appalachia in 2007 using all forms of surface mining combined (including auger and even waste coal mining).
Unless one is wedded to a more restrictive definition of mountaintop removal, as is favored by the agencies like the DEP these days, it would seem a more supportable number would be 115 million tons, which is the amount of production classified in the MSHA Part 50 data as “Strip” production in 2007 for Central Appalachian counties. At least MSHA classifies “Strip” separately from “Auger” - and I’m not sure that anyone’s using a definition of mountaintop removal that would include auger mining, except, perhaps, the NMA.
Regardless, given that this represented just about 10% of US coal production in 2007 and coal overall represented 50% of electricity production, an estimate that mountaintop removal accounts for “less than 5% of US electricity production” seems pretty supportable.
Obviously it’s a little more complicated, since Appalachian coal has more Btus than western coal - but since such a large proportion of Appalachian coal is metallurgic coal and since it’s the only basin that’s exporting a significant quantity of steam coal, it would be surprising if mountaintop removal accounted for more than about 3% of US electricity generation.
But in the absence of better data on exports and metallurgic coal, it seems like saying mountaintop removal accounts for less than 5% of US electricity is a very safe estimate. Does that seem reasonable to you?
Matt,
I don’t think your math works out on the +1,000 miles of streams by 2009. That 724 miles of streams ALREADY buried was for permits issued between 1985 and 2001.
Especially given permits that have been held up in the courts — and the reduction in average fill size also cited in the EIS — I don’t think you can accurately predict the PACE of filling. So it’s impossible to say that we’ve gotten to 1,000 miles from that 724, and impossible to say how far toward the additional 724 miles in 16 years (that doesn’t mean 2009) …
The environmental community is wrong to wrong up from 724 miles to 1,000 just because to say more than 1,000 sounds better.
Why not just use the numbers the government has published — rather than guesses?
Ken.
Matt,
In addition - I don’t know where you got your 120 million ton figure.
EIA reports more than 150 million tons of surface mined coal in Appalachian in 2007. That’s here:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/table1.html.
Ken.
Phil,
Thanks for posting your comments … Just as folks who live near where your members work are living with the damage caused, your members would have to live with the results of any new policies on mountaintop removal.
While the Clean Air Act did force most mines in the Illinois basin to close, along with many in Northern Appalachia, it also fueled the growth in the Central Appalachian and Southern Appalachian low-sulfur fields.
I’d be interested in any hard numbers or academic research that tries to show how much of the long and steady declined in mining jobs — from the 1950s to the 2000s — was caused by what government and industry actions. It’s easy to throw out guesses about the causes, but I’d like to see some studies that put numbers on it.
As for your numbers — while you are correct that many advanced underground mines are very, very productive and efficient, especially with longwall machines — here are what the numbers show for Appalachia:
(these are 2007 figures)
Productivity of Appalachian mines, in tons produced per employee per hour:
Underground mines — 2.91
Surface mines — 3.44
In West Virginia, the difference is larger —
Underground mines — 2.82
Surface mines — 4.25
Note the difference also with Kentucky-
Underground mines — 2.69
Surface — 3.53
Just for fun, look at the same numbers for Wyoming:
Underground mines — 6.47
Surface 34.19.
Anyway, surface mines in WV are 1.5 times more productive than underground mines.
Put another way, underground mines in West Virginia employed twice as many miners, but produced only 19 percent more coal.
(The productivity numbers are available here:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/table21.html)
Ken.
Matt,
In response to your estimates of the electricity that comes from mountaintop removal coal…
You say that a “large proportion” of Appalachian coal is for steel-making. That’s not true.
In West Virginia, only 11 percent of coal goes to that purpose. Kentucky is even less.
See http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coaldistrib/2007/o_07state.pdf for that data.
Ken.
Ken,
I think you are splitting hairs when it comes to the miles of stream that have been polluted as a result of Mountain Top Removal coal mining.
I have been told that reporters aren’t supposed to have opinions, just offer the facts, but the facts you keep siting, and the way you keep talking about environmentalists, well, it’s kind of outed you. I would like to encourage you to be less pro-coal in your comments.
I care about this because I love Jesus and care about his people. You conveniently forgot to mention the people who are poisoned, suffer miscarriages, give birth to children with birth defects, have flying boulders destroy their homes and no longer have streams to fish in. The people of Appalachia may be poor, but they are people and worthy of dignity and respect. They were created in the image of God. They don’t want mansions or hummers, they just want to be able to sit on their porches, grow food in their gardens and fish in the streams. You seem to have forgotten the human component in all your fuss over the facts.
The facts don’t change the truth that these are God’s mountains that are being destroyed and for what? For an 18-inch seam of coal buried under 200 feet of rock? Is it really worth it? It’s greed and a lack of creativity. People’s lives and quality of life are at stake here.
I think we should all move to deep Appalachia and be forced to deal with the consequences of this. Right now, those of us who live outside the area benefit, while the Appalachian people suffer the consequences. That just isn’t right. It’s time for this destructive and cruel practice to be done. We can supply our countries energy needs in other ways (try wind energy for one!) that don’t destroy a culture or God’s mountains.
Sarah Landini
Sarah,
I take it you are not a regular reader of Coal Tattoo or of The Charleston Gazette, or you would not make a statement like this:
“…The way you keep talking about environmentalists, well, it’s kind of outed you. I would like to encourage you to be less pro-coal in your comments.”
I’d encourage you to read a little bit more, and perhaps some of my readers out there in the coal industry will get a kick out of your alleging that I’m “pro-coal.”
I certainly respect your right to oppose mountaintop removal for whatever reasons you wish, and you’re certainly not the first person to cite religious reasons.
But if folks from the environmental community want to cite “facts” in their argument, they should make sure they have their facts right. And it certainly is part of my job as the reporter who does this blog to call out folks who use incorrect data in their posts.
Thanks for reading, and for taking the time to comment.
Ken.
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Thanks for the responses, Ken.
In terms of the 120 million ton figure, that is for Central Appalachia - the EIA number you cited includes Northern and Southern Appalachian coalfields as well. It’s not clear to me that any of the Northern or Southern Appalachian mines require valley fills, but I’d defer to your long experience on this issue if you know that to be different. The actual numbers are based on our own database of MSHA Part 50 data (the same production data that EIA uses), but I think you would arrive at the same number by adding production numbers for TN, VA, eastern KY and southern WV from the EIA’s Annual Coal Report.
On the stream miles front, you make very good points. For the record, though, it was OSM that suggested the “linear” extrapolation, not environmentalists - it may not have made it into the 2003 summary, but the original OSM study definitely did the extrapolation without any help from us. That, of course, doesn’t make it any more valid and I’d accept your reasoning on why it may not be.
Readers,
A little more information on this debate over the miles of streams buried by valley fills…
I previously posted the link (http://www.epa.gov/region3/mtntop/pdf/executivesummary.pdf) to the 2003 EIS which estimated that 724 miles of streams in Appalachia buried by valley fills between 1985 and 2001.
It’s also important to note that the EIS performed as part of the Bush Administration’s changes to the buffer zone rule included some updated figures —
That study projects that: “If valley fills continue to be constructed at this rate, an additional 724 miles of headwater streams would be buried in 17 years or by 2018.”
That’s a VERY rough estimate for the government to be making — the real figure could be much higher of much lower. As the study acknowledged:
“This trend would continue into the future, but would likely shift regionally as surface-mineable coal reserves in central Appalachia are depleted in the next few decades.”
Where some folks appear to be getting their 1,000 miles figure is the mention in the buffer zone EIS of another 367 miles of streams buried in Appalachia.
But, that figure refers to streams that could be buried under permits issued between Oct. 1, 2001, and June 30, 2005. And, it’s based on permits issued by SMCRA agencies, some of which are likely to have been tied up during lawsuits over the Army Corps of Engineers permit process.
That does not mean these are streams already filled. In addition to issues about whether the permits were otherwise tied up in court, the industry points out that not all fills included in permits are eventually built — sometimes companies eliminate proposed fills; other times they expand them.
Finally, let me remind folks that I started this whole thing by responding to a comment from a reader who said, and I quote:
“In West Virginia alone, over 1,500 miles of head water streams have been buried. ”
No matter what numbers you use, there is not data to support that statement. And surely we can all agree that good data and facts are important to this debate.
In conclusion, let me note that I’ve been trying to count valley fills for more than 10 years. I remember when Dan Ramsey at the Fish and Wildlife Service and Cindy Rank of the Highlands Conservancy were coloring in lines on topo maps to try to figure this out.
And it seems to me to be a sad statement on the regulation of this industry that no one really has good numbers on this. The truth is: We don’t know how many streams have been buried. We just don’t.
Ken.
In regard to Met Coal production, the 11% sounds right for WV - though I think that will probably be closer to 15-20% when the 2008 numbers come out. Yeah, “a large proportion” was probably not the right language to use (I meant “large” in the context of other coal basins, not in relation to how much Appalachian coal is used as steam coal).
Thanks again.
All,
And let me publicly thank Matt (and Phil) for such a great discussion of all of these details.
Ken.
[…] maybe there is reason to hope that change will come soon. On his excellent Coal Tattoo blog, Ken Ward, Jr. suggests that a decision is expected shortly, based on testimony by one of […]
And I want to thank Ken Ward for putting together such a great forum for discussion about mountaintop removal. The issue of mountaintop removal is getting big real quick, as the content of this post demonstrates, and it would benefit everybody if all sides can do our best to get straight on the facts ASAP.
For my part, the immortal words of Stephen Colbert, “The facts have a well known liberal bias” ring especially true in the context of mountaintop removal, except that there’s nothing particularly “liberal” about thinking mountaintop removal is an enormously bad idea.
I appreciate that, Matt. And I love the Colbert quote.
The real credit for whatever contribution Coal Tattoo makes to discussions of these issues goes to my bosses at The Charleston Gazette, who are giving me the time and freedom to blog away here, and who continue to run a great small newspaper in very tough times for our industry.
Ken,
HUGE thanks for the great work that you do — with extreme fair-mindedness.
Mountain Top Removal mining replaced the shoot-n-shove method in the early 1970s. It is a very efficient method of coal recovery plus it’s less costly than other surface mining methods in such terrain.
There’s no doubt that mining itself is damaging to the environment, especially so in sensitive areas.
The shoot-n-shove method was prohibited with the passage of the federal act (SMCRA) in 1977 and then the two-acre exemption of that law was sebsquently stricken within several years.
Thankfully too, the Giant Earth Movers — electric shovels and draglines — have also disappeared from surface coal mining.
There is totally no doubt that Mountain Top Removal mining will not be allowed to continue in its present form; doubtful too is that it will be totally prohibited.
Ken would you know how many surface mine permits have been filed for since 1995 to present, just in West Virginia. And what is the ratio of permits that were granted, to the ones that have been denied, in the same time frame. Thank you for your wonderful blog site.
Chuck,
Thanks for your kind words.
I don’t have that number of permits off the top of my head, but I have data on that on my computer and can dig some of it out.
Well, I have the number of permits applied for during that time, anyway. And I could figure out from that how many were granted.
What are you trying to find out?
One thing about that calculation — DEP officials are going to say (and honestly, they are right) that most permits that DEP doesn’t think meet the standard to be granted never reach the point of being denied. They end up being withdrawn before that happens. This is true. It’s what happens.
Now, that’s not to say that every permit that DEP thinks should be issued really does meet the standard to be issued — whether DEP does a good job with permit reviews is another issue altogether. And I’m not sure the numbers you’re asking for will help answer that question.
Ken.
I want to add my endorsement of this blog. It is an excellent resource. It is obvious that Ken Ward works hard to put it together.
To uselessly stir things up even more, I find Matt Wasson’s posts persuasive. His reasoning makes sense and he approaches the numbers as the approximations they are. I have read parts of the EIS and, like many of the other folks posting, numerous discussions and articles about that document. I have also been to the EIA site with coal production stats.
I think it is very important to stress that we really don’t know enough about either the extent or the impact of this kind of mining. To my knowledg, the (in)famous EIS–based on data generated almost a decade ago–is the only comprehensive, region-wide study ever done. It is my understanding that much of the data was based on permit figures–notoriously unreliable–and not on actual surveys in the field. Isn’t it true that surveys by West Virginia’s DEP and environmental organizations have noted valley fills and mined areas 40% larger than permitted? It’s unfortunate that “724″ was the number published in the study–it implies a level of certainty that is probably not intended.
Red Desert,
Thanks for your kind words. And you’re right, Matt is great and provides some really interesting input on this issue and especially this data-parsing. I hope he continued to contribute.
The permit data is troublesome…but that cuts both ways — some fills are built much larger than originally permitted; others are permitted but never built.
I’m not familiar with the 40 percent figure you mention, and would be interested in a citation to where it was published.
Cindy Rank would want me to add that the bigger and bigger “incidental boundary revisions” DEP is willing to do these days make the original permit size much less helpful.
As I said the other day, I agree: We don’t really know (for many reasons) the exact number of streams we’ve lost. That is a sad statement on the regulation of this industry.
Matt can correct me if I’m wrong here, but there was a certain amount of ground-proofing done for the EIS. That provides some additional confidence in the numbers.
But, I don’t think there’s been any of that sort of thing done with the projections in the buffer zone EIS for future fills — so who the heck knows how accurate those figures are.
Where I run into a problem that I just don’t understand is this: Burying 724 miles of streams is a lot. That’s a big number. So, given that it’s the government’s number and it’s big, why do folks from the environmental community make wild guesses (not that Matt does that — but many Coal Tattoo comments haven’t been as careful as his) to inflate the numbers even more? Why not be safe and cautious, use the government figure, because it’s big enough…there’s no need to make it sound bigger.
I just don’t get that.
Ken.
Here’s another useful lens to use in thinking about labor productivity, mountaintop mining, climate legislation, and other issues affecting coal in West Virginia and Central Appalachia.
EIA has now completed the public release of its Annual Energy Outlook data for 2009. Following up on the above discussion of labor productivity (and the discussion on 3/23, What does coal know that the rest of us don’t?), it’s important not just to look at the most recent info on the relative productivity of surface and underground miners, but also to look at the trends in productivity through time. As EIA notes in its Assumptions to the AEO 2009 Coal Market Module (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/assumption/index.html)
“In the Central Appalachian coal basin, which has been mined extensively, productivity declined by a significant 29 percent between 1999 and 2007, corresponding to an average decline of 4.2 percent per year. […] Higher stripping ratios and the added labor needed to maintain more extensive underground mines offset productivity gains achieved from improved equipment, automation, and technology. Productivity in some areas of the East is projected to decline as operations move from mature coalfields to marginal reserve areas. Regulatory restrictions on surface mines and fragmentation of underground reserves limit the benefits that can be achieved by Appalachian producers from economies of scale.”
What is this telling us? At a time when national average coal mine labor productivity is still improving, the exhausted coalfields of Central Appalachia have been hemorrhaging productivity (& recall that productivity in Wyoming is fully ten times what it is in Appalachia –ten times even in Northern Appalachia, which is home to the monster longwalls that produce that highly efficient union-made coal).
The part about “higher stripping ratios” is EIA-speak for “it’s only going to become less and less profitable to mine coal in Central Appalachia, whether it’s through highly destructive & expensive mountaintop removal or underground mining of fragmented, dangerous, marginal coal seams.”
At a regional level all across the country, the older coal-producing regions are starting to lose productivity (although Central Appalachia is probably the leader of the pack). The debate about the relative merits of underground vs. surface mining misses the overarching issue, which is that the coal reserves are dwindling fast and furious in Central Appalachia. If maximizing their exploitation continues to be our preference and our public policy, we’re just going to have to accept a certain amount of a) annihilated mountaintops, b) sick and imperiled miners, c) retirement of human habitation in certain areas of Central Appalachia, and/or d) unhealthy human and aquatic communities. This stuff about federal legislation affecting employment or coal production is also a big red herring. This argument is raised regarding the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 and also the more moderate climate change proposals that stand a chance of passage. However, all research, modeling, and experience strongly indicate that the effects on production and employment, relative to business-as-usual, have been and will probably continue to be both modest and temporary.
The single most powerful force affecting the coal industry in West Virginia is the simple fact that the resource itself is in retreat.
[…] President Obama must not know! He said he’d put an end to the mountaintop pillages! The EPA announced on September 11th this year that they had permits to start blasting the mountaintops of the Appalachaian Mountains, and they have! […]
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