Feds: WVDEP should beef up mine flooding reviews
Last week, West Virginia Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman told a U.S. Senate subcommittee what a great job his agency does making sure that mountaintop removal coal mining doesn’t contribute to flooding. Among a long list of changes Huffman said the state Department of Environmental Protection has made to ease federal regulators’ concerns about mountaintop removal, Huffman cited flood protections:
For the past several years the State has required every permit to include a Surface Water Runoff Analysis which is an engineered formula that assures no flooding potential from proposed mining operations. Additionally, West Virginia modified its valley fill construction rules to further assure no flooding potential in times of short, intense runoff from flash storms and thunderstorms.
Sounds great, right?
The U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement thinks so … well, kind of. OSMRE officials think the state’s so-called “SWROA” “concept is valid,” a reasonable method to try to limit the potential for large-scale mining to make flooding more likely or more damaging.
But is WVDEP doing a good job implementing this approach? Well, not so much, at least according to a new OSMRE oversight report.
Experts from OSMRE’s Charleston Field Office found problems with computer modeling used by mine operators in their flood potential analysis, inconsistencies in the way WVDEP approves mine operator permit applications, and a really basic flaw in the state agency’s rules for how these SWROA studies work
Most importantly, OSMRE found that WVDEP does not do follow-up work necessary to figure out of the studies are accurate:
Most significant was a lack of comparison between actual discharges resulting from the specific rainfall events and those predicted by the model for the same event.
WVDEP instituted the SWROA requirement for new permits in the wake of the devastating floods of 2001, in which surface mining was widely blamed to have made matters much worse. The idea was to force mine operators to study the potential for their mining to add to peak runoff from mine sites, and then take steps to avoid that runoff and prevent flooding.
OSMRE said the SWROA concept “and emphasis on storm water management has resulted in many improvements,” including “surface mine drainage design, timely construction, emphasis on more creative and safer water detention, and better valley fill drainage and construction practices.”
But the new OSMRE study outlined a variety of problems, based on reviewing a sampling of permits that WVDEP had approved:
– In one instance, a company permit designer assumed that a runoff catch basin was dry when a storm occurred. “A more conservative, or safer, approach is to assume all structures to be full when the event begins,” OSMRE said.
– In another SWROA, the flow path for the pre-mining condition of forest with heavy litter was transitioned to a paved area or small upland stream with no intermediate zone. This shortened the travel time, and inflates the pre-mining peak flows (presumably making any flows during or after mining not seem to be as big of an increase).
– Worst-case during-mining scenarios did not consider the “critical situation” that occurs when valley fills are totally denuded and dumping begins. “If the site is not stage cleared and adequate ditches and detention structures in place to compensate for the drastic changes in ground cover, then peak runoff leaving the site will increase,” OSMRE said. “This critical situation was not considered in any of the SWROAs.”
– OSMRE officials identified many concerns with the assumptions used in the permit models. “In many cases, the worst-case scenario was questionable or the assumed runoff values did not appear to be based in known science. In some cases, the discharge monitoring point locations did not appear representative of the mine.”
And then there’s the other really big thing:
The regulations relating to SWROA do not require monitoring of all discharges from a site.
In each case reviewed, the operator’s monitoring plan included one SWROA compliance point, which was presented as representative of the entire permitted site of hundreds of acres and mulitple drainages.
However, in one instance, the representative compliance point was placed in a drainage area in which the only mining related activity was placement of additional spoil in an existing valley fill. By placing the monitoring point in this location, the data collected at the site would show a reduction in run-off for that particular drainage area that does not accurately depict how the overall mining operation is affecting all impacted drainage areas.
And let’s not forget this:
One observable shortcoming of the SWROA, as currently approved by the state, is a lack of a mechanism to measure its effect. The current regulations do not include a requirement that storm water runoff peak discharges be measured. Nor do the regulations require actual measurement of pre-mining discharges, or real time correlation between rainfall and runoff.
What does DEP have to say about all this?
The OSMRE report notes, “WVDEP concurs in the findings in the report” and has agreed to host a workshop with industry to try to fix these problems. WVDEP has agreed to train its field inspectors to look into potential SWROA-related issues, and the OSMRE report adds:
WVDEP will monitor its violation history on a yearly basis to determine if there are offsite impacts related to excessive peak discharges. Depending on these field conditions WVDEP may consider further changes to the SWROA process including increased monitoring and verification of the models.
8 comments
Weak response by the DEP as usual. “We’ll do better, we swear.” Was there a commitment in there to reform their SWROA model? Or perhaps to increase the number of discharge monitoring points and tighten the requirements for the selection of those points? When will this ‘workshop’ happen?
I applaud the OSMRE for doing their job and calling Huffman and the WVDEP out for using faulty modeling and oversight practices. When will the DEP actually begin “protecting” the environment and stop finding ways to make sure such protection doesn’t actually happen?
And so… can you tell your interested readers if this is one individual oversight report (specifically re: SWORA) that is separate from/additional to the Annual Oversight Report from OSMRE re: WVDEP for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009 ????
That Annual Oversight Report is normally sent out sometime in August after OSMRE first sends its original evaluation to WVDEP for affirmation and/or correction or criticism.
I truly believe that the EPA should take over the WVDEP. The WVDEP has time after time proven that they have shown disregard for the law and by doing so local communities have suffered the consequenses. It is time that the Federal govenment needs to step in and take over the state WVDEP.
It has been proven time and time again that the WVDEP is lax in enforcement and will rubber stamp permits no matter what the local citizens say. In one of our informal conferences in our community we brought out that the DEP simply does not care about the approval process. We proved, by going over the permit in question in our area that the DEP approved the permit in question, even though we proved that they did their water testing of wells over telephone conversations instead of going to households and testing the water themselves. We have pro0f of that. We have the permit here at the our house that states that this was done. It was on record at the Boone County Courthouse for anyone who is willing to pay for copies of the permit.
It is past time that our so called DEP is called to account for what they have done and continue to do. It is time that the EPA comes in here and takes over control of the environmental issues of MTR mining. The WVDEP is shameless. They don’t even try to hide their lack of enforcement. It is shameful and it is a disgrace, and our citizens are suffering the consequenses of that disregard for the law.
I am not one to defend any government agency as to being competent or efficient because unlike private enterprise these groups just do not have the incentives to be excellent at anything that is positive. What does stand out to me though is the repeated statement of OSMRE’s report and the statement used in the short cover letter that says “Based on our permit and field review of five permits, it is the team’s finding that the SWROA concept is valid, and that the associated emphasis on stormwater management has had positive effects”. That statement is an important aspect of the report and is not adequately reported in the article.
I have never seen an oversite report that didn’t find something that needs improving as is the case here. Continual improvement is what private enterprise pursues and for the government, it is just slower.
So: In July 2009, a study reported four months ago (March 6) — that doesn’t indicate when it actually was done — to review a state program change approved in 2003 says that within 12 months training will be developed about what’s been required since 1978 when the federal Act (SMCRA) went into effect — inspecting for off-site impacts.
Alice in Wonderland has more reality than this does.
Note: I was with OSMRE (1978-1995) after being an Ohio resclamation specialist (1975-1978).
Cindy,
Yes. This is a separate oversight report. It’s available at the link I included in the post.
You’ll see that it’s mentioned in the last annual oversight report, http://www.osmre.gov/Reports/EvalInfo/2008/WV-aml-reg.pdf on page 32 of the document.
While it’s dated March 2009 on the front page, it wasn’t made public until late April — and frankly, I didn’t hear about it until last week.
Ken.
link correction:
http://www.osmre.gov/Reports/EvalInfo/2008/WV-aml-reg.pdf [,]
(Except from page 32)
M. Storm Water Run Off Analysis (SWROA) Effectiveness
In 2007 [July 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007], engineers from OSM and the WVDEP formed a team with the task of evaluating the effectiveness of implementation of the new Storm Water Runoff Analysis (SWROA) rule. The team reviewed five SWROAs, selecting one SWROA from the jurisdiction of each of the four WVDEP permit review offices, and a second from the Logan Office. The sampled SWROAs were related to mines that were located in steep slope regions, regions currently producing coal, and regions currently implementing the SWROA in the field.
During EY 2008 [July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008], evaluations of all selected sites were completed and a report will be prepared during the next evaluation year.
Comment
So: It takes more than nine months (March 2009) to complete a seven-page report on five inspections — done before July 2008 — by a team formed in 2006 or maybe 2007.
It would be interesting to see the drafts and communications regarding this team’s work over three years that resulted in this teeny-tiny report that says something now needs to be done next year.
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