One way to create green jobs in the coalfields
Derek Springston, a volunteer with Friends of Deckers Creek, helps to monitor water quality near an old mine at Richard. Iron from the mine drainage colors the water and bank orange. When it settles in the streambed, it smothers habitat for aquatic insects, which would provide food for fish. Courtesy photo.
Your Sunday Gazette-Mail’s Perspectives page featured a commentary by Evan Hansen of Downstream Strategies and Sarah Veselka of Friends of Deckers Creek about their efforts to convince state officials to spend some Abandoned Mine Lands program money to finish the cleanup of Deckers Creek in Morgantown.
I’ve been a little skeptical of such projects being moved to the top of the stack of AML projects in the Appalachian coalfields. Why? Sure, it sounds like a win-win that would clean up an environmental problems and help spur tourism as part of a more diverse economy for that part of West Virginia.
But when I wrote Abandoned Promises, a series on the AML program five years ago, among the things I learned and reported about was the effort by some states — primarily Pennsylvania at the time — to divert huge amounts of federal mine cleanup money to projects like this, which are lower down on the priority list set by Congress.
(And I have to say, I wonder about the notion of environmentalists urging Gov. Joe Manchin to direct the WVDEP to do anything –Â aren’t they the ones always complaining about how governors politicize the agency, to the benefit of the coal industry?)
This U.S. Office of Surface Mining map shows the concentration of abandoned coal mines in the heart of Appalachia.
The AML program has had many successes, but it’s fallen far short of its ultimate goals — in large part because hundreds of millions of dollars have been diverted to lower priority projects or to projects that had nothing at all to do with cleaning up coal’s past messes.
Regarding stream cleanups specifically, some federal government officials and many environmental groups have pushed to move projects that are strictly environmental cleanups — projects that don’t have a public safety aspect to them — up on the AML priority list. Pennsylvania was the biggest advocate of this, having in 1999 added $3.6 billion of such projects to their AML inventory, a move that doubled the size of the entire nationwide mine cleanup database.
Rep. Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va. and the congressional leader on AML issues, tried to put a stop to such nonsense, by eliminating language that allowed states to give priority to projects that protect “the general welfare” from coal-mining damage, along with health and safety threats.
The final legislation passed in 2006 to extend the AML project for another 14 years compromised:
The bill eliminates a broad “general welfare†provision that many states had used to divert AML money to reclamation and water cleanups that did not threaten public health or property. But the bill also allows such lower-priority environmental projects to continue if they are adjacent to public health and property cleanups.Â
And, as the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement said in its final rules to implement the 2006 legislation, there are a variety of other programs and funding set-asides that ensure that cleanups like Deckers Creek can be addressed by the AML program.
Just a few months after the 2006 legislation passed, Gov. Manchin announced (in his 2007 State of the State address, no less) that he was going to make drinking water projects for coalfield communities a priority as WVDEP began to spend the increased AML money coming its way under the program extension and reform.
As Evan and Sarah point out in their Gazette-Mail commentary:
The money is available. This year, the federal Abandoned Mine Land Trust Fund provided an unprecedented $40 million to the state for projects such as this, and it will provide $51 million next year. According to the rules for disbursing these funds, the Richard mine qualifies as a Priority 3 site because it does not present a threat to human health and welfare through, for example, an open portal. However, the state can spend 30 percent of its allocations on sites with acid mine drainage problems like this.
Such projects have great potential in West Virginia and across the coalfields. And, they can be done without stripping money from projects that have stronger public health and safety implications — especially is the Obama administration decides to make clear this promise:
Federal agencies will work in coordination with appropriate regional, state and local entities to help diversify and strengthen the Appalachian regional economy and promote the health and welfare of Appalachian communities.
One possible way to make good on that pledge? Boost spending from the AML fund on mining cleanups across the region’s coalfields.
7 comments
I am not sure I follow. I have no problem with the Governor directing the Department of Environmental Protection to protect the environment. As an environmentalist, I would tend to complain about the manipulation of ’soft science’ to gain political windfall on issues such as reclamation.
I assume you are referring to Deckers Creek being directed to leapfrog its way up the DEP priority list for funding. But what is the list and is it not also a product itself of politicization? The legalese of “direct threat to public health or property” or “adjacent to public health or property” seems to leave a lot of room for interpretation. I would also hope that anyone in charge of directing funds would take into account the capacity and interest within the community of which those funds are invested.
The Gazette article references the fact the the Governor has “directed the state DEP to make specific expenditures from the Abandoned Mine Land Trust Fund in the past”. I don’t know what these specific expenditures are or just how often they have been directed. That might help to understand where you are coming from.
Brian,
My point is that environmentalists complain all the time of political interference with WVDEP … and I’m just wondering whether it’s the proper role of the governor to direct specific projects be funded by the AML program.
The op-ed piece did indicate that has happened in the past … and I have to wonder if that’s right — shouldn’t the experts at WVDEP be making those decisions, not a politician?
Ken.
A point of clarification, please.
Ken, you wrote: “…Pennsylvania was the biggest advocate of this, having in 1999 added $3.6 billion of such projects to their AML inventory, a move that doubled the size of the entire nationwide mine cleanup database.”
I realize that water problems at abandoned sites are usually Priority 2 or lower in AML ranking. However, i’ve always understood that they were indeed included in the nationwide database.
If i’m mistaken, let me know, but if i’m correct then i don’t see how Pennsylvania’s actions “doubled the size of the ….. database.” ???
I believe it may be premature to undertake such a project at this time since DEP has just started intensive monthly stream sampling on Deckers Creek and the rest of the Monongahela watershed and will include an intensive sweep for point and non-point pollution sources. Over the next year, this sampling will generate current data for a new TMDL model which will be developed by DEP & its contractors. The previous TMDL model was developed by EPA and was based mainly on scattered existing data and little to no new data. The Deckers Creek watershed is being heavily sampled in this effort and DEP looks to be cooperating with the Friends of Deckers Creek watershed organization. See here
http://www.wvdep.org/Docs/17514_MonD2_WCMS_TMDL_Map.pdf
and here
http://www.wvdep.org/show_blob.cfm?ID=17374&Name=MonD2_2009_TMDL_stream_list.xlsx
Cindy,
I’d suggest going back and reading the story from my series,
http://wvgazette.com/News/AbandonedPromises/200408170003
I explained it there in great detail.
There was a bit of a dispute over whether these should or should not have been added to the inventory — as explained in the story.
Their addition by Pennsylvania was deliberate and was based on a new policy by Bob Uram for OSM to put more emphasis on watershed-wide AMD cleanups.
Ken.
Thanks….. must have missed that part….. will go back and read more thoroughly the selection in Abandoned Promises that you suggest.
In response to Mayfly Guy, it’s true that DEP is starting a new monitoring effort across the Mon basin for the TMDL. But the Natural Resources Conservation Service has monitored the Richard discharge intensively with continuous monitoring equipment to record actual flows and chemistry. Also, Friends of Deckers Creek has monitored Decker Creek and its key tributaries systematically for many years.
There’s really no debate about water quality above and below Richard, or the impact of the Richard discharge. While we certainly welcome more data from DEP, it’s very unlikely to change our understanding of the situation.
AML projects have been designed with much, much less data than we have on the Richard site.
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