Photo by Sarah Haltom, Coal River Mountain Watch

Today, I wrote a story about a report by the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement on the state of West Virginia’s failure to put a stop to blackwater spills from the coal mines here.

Blackwater spills are just one of the many, many issues detailed in the latest annual OSMRE oversight report on WVDEP. The bottom line this year? Staff continues to be a problem, mine reclamation isn’t keeping up with the acreage permitted, and off-site impacts are on the rise.

The annual report was issued recently by the good folks at the OSMRE Charleston field office, conveniently located just a couple doors down the street from the Gazette building.

That annual report is posted here, on the OSMRE  field office’s Web site. If you’re interested in how well West Virginia does in policing its coal industry, this is document is a great place to start. OSMRE does this for every state, and an archive of the reports is available here.

I suggest reading it while keeping in mind the testimony by DEP Secretary Randy Huffman to Congress earlier this year, in which he bragged about what a great job he believes his agency is doing. Also worth doing is taking a look at how OSMRE responds to problems, and whether you think federal officials are doing enough to push the state in the right direction. And, of course, readers might want to recall that Huffman’s boss, Gov. Joe Manchin, is spending quite a bit of time criticizing the way other government agencies do their jobs regulating the coal industry …

With that in mind, here are some of the highlights of this year’s report:

– Reclamation by mining companies continues to fail to keep up with the new acreage permitted by WVDEP for stripping. During the year, 8,169 acres reached final reclamation. Nearly 11,800 acres of permits were added.

– Staffing vacancies at the WVDEP Division of Mining and Reclamation increased by 85 percent, because of retirements and the coal industry’s hiring of state personnel.  The report said:

State officials have acknowledged that they are finding it difficult to fill some technical positions. Given the state’s permitting workload and the number of vacancies, OSM has encouraged the state to be more aggressive in filling these vacancies.

– “Off-site impacts” of mining operations were up  by 6 percent and the number of permits with such impacts was up by 14 percent. The most common off-site impacts were to water resources, but the OSMRE report also listed impacts from blasting, land stability and “encroachment.”

– Despite years of work on the project, WVDEP and OSMRE still have not put together an updated inventory of mine sites where water is being treated for acid mine drainage pollution. The last such inventory was completed in 2000. This year’s report says:

Preliminary data for 2007 indicated that there were approximately 370 active, bonded permits in the state with appreciable water treatment costs. The permits have approximately 556 NPDES outlets. Only 13 permits on the list were issued after 1999.

As reported last year, five tasks remained to be completed that would require additional time and resources to complete … [WVDEP] officials agreed to evaluate the remaining  tasks and make recommendations to management for further consideration.

– WVDEP and OSMRE identified 42 abandoned mine permits where a third party might be obligated for cleanup costs, meaning the state would not have to spend public money on the reclamation. But, staffers were unable to determine whether reclamation had been completed for 27 of the 42 permits. According to the report:

The 27 permits became the subject of further analysis during the 2007 evaluation year, but other assignments within OSM have delayed completion of this study. Because this review is still not complete, it will be continued into the 2010 evaluation year.

– WVDEP officials were not completing required monthly inspections of abandoned mine sites. Data in the report shows the state completed 993 of 1,304 required complete inspections and 1,165 of 2,608 required partial inspections.  The OSMRE report said:

OSM will continue to work with the state during the upcoming year to implement these requirements and to make sure the state is meeting its required inspection frequency at bond forfeiture sites.

But, it also said that OSMRE had approved a new state rule that allows WVDEP to “reduce its inspection frequency” at these sites.

– WVDEP is requiring mine operators to replace water supplies damaged by mining “in a timely manner.” But, several water supplies that were replaced later “proved to be problematic.” An OSMRE study recommended better information regarding alternative water supplies, improved complaint procedures, modification to permits once problems are identified, and escrow bonding when final water replacement exceeded 90 days. The OSMRE report said:

OSM and state officials met during the evaluation year to discuss this and other studies. The parties agreed that a joint State and Federal team was needed to further evaluate and implement the recommendations regarding water supply replacement. These actions have not been completed yet.

– In at least 11 instances, WVDEP responses to OSMRE “10-day notices” — the action OSMRE takes when it believes the state didn’t properly handle a violation — remain unresolved.

– Because of concerns about the adequacy of reclamation bonding, WVDEP has been trying to survey the companies that hold such bonds on mine sites in West Virginia. But despite repeated attempts, WVDEP can’t get the companies to respond to its requests for information. The report explains:

Since only certificates describing the policies and not the actual policies themselves are on file with the state, it was necessary to get the information from the insurance companies. Unfortunately, only a few insurance companies responded to the request for information.

Last year, the improve the response rate, the team sent the same questionnaire electronically to those insurance companies that did not respond to the initial inquiry. Unfortunately, the team only received one additional reply. Out of the 20 insurance agents that have been contacted, the team has only received three complete and one partial response.

This year, alternative measures were employed to get the information that is necessary to complete this review. Again, not all companies were cooperative, and we only received information from three additional companies. Because this review is still not complete, it will be continued into the next evaluation period. Given the limited amount of information that is available to it, the team will attempt to complete this review next year.

– Mine operators are becoming more and more interested in submitting permits that call for their sites to be reclaimed under a new “Forestry Reclamation Approach” promoted by the WVDEP. In 2008, 87 percent of the new surface mine permits — covering 84 percent of the permitted acreage — approved by  WVDEP proposed this post-mining land use. But:

Through OSM oversight inspections, it is apparent that some permittees and operators as well as some state inspectors, are not aware of the changes in regulations and permitting requirements with respect to the FRA.

Improper selection of growth medium and over tracking still occur on some sites with forest as the post-mining land use. With additional training of WVDEP inspection staff planned for 2009, and appropriate enforcement actions, the requirements should become evident.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 9:20 pm and is filed under OSMRE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.