There’s a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office hot off the presses today about mountaintop removal coal mining and surface mining in general.
The report is online here. The report provides no recommendations for action, but offers a few interesting numbers:
– The number of acres under open permit in West Virginia and Kentucky increased because the number of acres issued grew faster than the number of acres released or forfeited. The average annual growth rate from January 1990 through July 2008 was about 2.2 percent in Kentucky and 1.7 percent in West Virginia.
– Acres under open permit have become more concentrated in specific counties since 1990. About 44 percent of the acres under open permit in Kentucky, as of July 2008, were located in three counties—Pike County, Perry County, and Knott County. In 1990, the three counties with the most acres under open permit accounted for only 28 percent of the total. Similarly, in West Virginia, as of July 2008, Boone County, Logan County, and Mingo County accounted for about 48 percent of all acres under open permit at that time, compared with 33 percent for the three counties with the most acres under open permit in 1990.
– The length of time that permits were open varied. In Kentucky, for permits issued since 1990, the length of time a permit was open—from issuance to release—ranged from less than 1 year to more than 18 years and averaged about 7-1/2 years. In West Virginia, the length of time from issuance to release ranged from less than 1 year to almost 17 years and averaged about 8-1/2 years. Moreover, both states have a substantial number of permits that were issued since 1990 that were still open as of July 2008. The average length of time these permits were open was nearly 5 years in Kentucky and more than 8-1/2 years in West Virginia.
– Nearly half of the permitted acres in West Virginia are concentrated in 28 contiguously permitted areas. We identified these areas using available electronic geospatial files of West Virginia permit boundaries for permits that were open in July 2008 or that were released or forfeited since 1990. These 28 contiguously permitted areas account for 178,600 acres, or about 47 percent of all the acreage that is either currently open or that was released or forfeited since 1990. The largest of these contiguously permitted areas is 21,700 acres and is made up of 37 permits. About 89 percent of the acreage in the 28 contiguously permitted areas is under open permit as of July 2008.
Another of the more interesting points made in the study is that while “surface coal mining in the mountainous areas of Appalachia — often called ‘mountaintop mining’ — generates controversy … there is limited public access to information on the size, location, and life span of these operations, or on how the land can be expected to look afterward.”
I was just listening to Gov. Joe Manchin on the MetroNews Talkline show, again going on about how West Virginia needs more mountaintop removal so there will be more flattened land for economic development.
But the GAO report confirms once again that very, very little of the surface mined lands are proposed by coal companies during the permit process for any sort of real post-mining development.
According to the GAO:
In West Virginia, of the 212 permits issued from January 2000 through July 2008, 141 permits were approved for forestland as a PMLU, followed by 46 permits approved for fish and wildlife habitat/recreation and 34 permits approved for hay or pastureland. Sixty permits issued during this time were approved for other PMLU types, including 23 for commercial forestry or woodland, and 12 for industrial/commercial.
The GAO report also looked at valley fills, and provided this accounting for West Virginia:
West Virginia approved the construction of 511 fills on permits issued from January 2000 through July 2008.
Of the 511 fills approved on permits issued from 2000 to 2008, West Virginia’s database contains storage volume information on 506 fills. In total, these 506 fills were approved to store up to 2.7 billion cubic yards of excess spoil, averaging 5.4 million cubic yards and ranging from 6,932 cubic yards to 123.6 million cubic yards per fill. See figure 27 for the total storage volume approved, by year.
Of the 511 fills approved on permits issued from 2000 through July 2008, West Virginia’s database contains length information on 496 fills. In total, these fills were approved to measure 933,487 feet (nearly 177 miles) in length. On average, these fills were approved to measure 1,882 feet (over one-third of a mile) in length and varied from 150 feet to 8,400 feet (up to 1.6 miles) per fill.
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[...] Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette – » GAO report provides detailed numbers on MTR blogs.wvgazette.com – view page – cached There’s a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office hot off the presses today about mountaintop removal coal mining and surface mining in general. [...]
Ken,
Frankly, Governor Manchin’s seemingly endless prattling about how MTR provides “flat land for economic development” has become like the annoying drone of a mosquito, and about as meaningful. TalkLine would naturally be his medium of choice for such buzzings.
Moreover, I think you highlighted one of the most fundamental problems with the permitting process in noting the contiguous nature of the ruination of these lands.
Coal companies have a handy little dodge. THEY get to name the permits. As such, the coal company will name one 1500 acre permit “Bubblegum Sparklepony #1,” while naming the permit next to it “Unicorn Fairydust #12,” for another 1500 acres, and making the two seem utterly unrelated.
It is this bit of smoke and mirrors that we’ve been trying to get EPA to see. Cumulative effects are what matters. You can’t measure the impact of these things without noting what’s going on around them anymore that you can assess the qualities of the ammonium nitrate in a blast without noting the other constituent components’ contribution to the overall effect.
Perhaps in at least noting the contiguous destruction as the GAO report does, it begins to point out that MTR doesn’t happen under isolated conditions.
fascinating. anyone know where i might be able to get the GIS layers they used? public download?
Jason, you can download some files here: http://gis.wvdep.org/data/omr.html
I’m not sure if that’s what they used for this study, and the website says, appropriately, “due to staff vacancies, this data has not been maintained since November 2008.” And the valley fill data sets are only as good as September 2003.
For once I agree with the information provided. But as usual it is twisted to fit the anti mining agenda. The development areas left behind in WV may not be utilized immediately, but could be a huge asset to future generations. If you want to see what lack of planning can do, take a drive down US 52 from Gilbert south to Bluefield. Billions of dollars passed thru those counties with nothing left behind for future generations. If some of those “evil” coal dollars had been used to develop infastructure, people in that part of Wv may have had a chance to survive. My point is that by leaving 500 acres flat in Logan or Mingo Counties we certainly have no guarntee that “XYZ” company is going to build a plant to produce parts for windmills in year 2020. BUT I can absolutely assure you that if the only flat acreage available in these counties is in the flood plain, with no access to transportation the future generations don’t have a chance, and will either relocate or live on a government check.
The GAO has a superb process for evaluationg and reporting. This is something that OSMRE SHOULD adopt in its oversight activities.
The tables and figures in is 82 page report are impressive, but they don’t really say anything.
“Open acres” and number of fills by themselves are meaningless.
“Open acres of active mining operations are not distinguished from open acres of completed operations — that is, acres still being mines from acres that should be reclaimed.
EVERY coal mining operation in the eastern U.S. creates excess spoil — most often 20-30 percent increase in volume of the inplace strata being moved. To a great degree, many operations retain a large amount of the excess spoil within the mined area.
The issue not addressed by GAO is the unwarranted placement of excess spoil outside of the mined area — fills and disposal areas beyond those neccessary.
What is unstated in the GAO report: OSMRE has not captured meaningful approciate data and information about coal mining and reclamation operations.
Sad.
Concerned Miner,
I think that there are two points to be made here that are important:
1. The coal industry wants to say it should be allowed to continue mountaintop removal because we need the flat land, but yet they seldom actually do develop that flat land; and
2. If indeed the flat land was needed for development, there seems to be plenty of it already out there from past MTR, so that’s no reason to continue the practice.
Ken.
Bob Mooney,
You’re wrong about the “open acres” issue … every permit that is still listed as “open” is one that has not reached final reclamation. That’s an important statistic.
Ken.
Ken,
I saw no mention of whether or not a final map had been filed; whether or not the operation was in temporary cessation of operations.
This review was done at “high altitude”– no ground truthing…and no separating of right from wrong.
Again, the issue (not addressed by GAO) is there is no recordkeeping or internal controls BECAUSE there sound data and information is not being captured.
——————————————————————————–
From: rhmooney3@hotmail.com
To: nazzaror@gao.gov
CC: [deleted]
Subject: GAO Report 10-21
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2009
Dear Ms. Nazzaro,
I thank you for this very informative report…even with its inexactness.
http://gao.gov/products/GAO-10-21
As the report does indicate, “open acres” is extremely inclusive.
In regards to excess spoil — overburden expansion due to fragmentation during its displacement — the footnote on Page 47 of the report does vaguely mention that even when AOC is returned “some excess spoil must be disposed in fills” (beyond the area of coal extraction).
The report on Page 53 mentions excess spoil comprising 25 percent of the total amount of mine spoil being disposed. (This amount is very dependent upon the mining equipment being used. Large electric shovels and draglines (Gaint Earth Movers, see History Channel episode) generate 30-35 percent. I very much doubt that any mining engineer would calculate excess spoil being any less than 25 percent.
From my experience with coal mining reclamation, being as an Ohio inspector in January 1975 and ending as a OSMRE deputy field office director in May 1995, I am well aware mine spoil placement.
To me, it was a disservice of GAO — which I very greatly respect — to not have included detail information on the fact that mine spoil being deposited beyond the mined areas of every mine in the eastern U.S. By not doing so, no distinction is made between appropriate and inappropriate disposal of the mine spoil.
(I recall being told of a citizen complaint in Ohio in the earlier 1970s, from a lady who could no longer see the morning sunrises from her kitchen window because a hill had risen in height due to the placement of mine spoil back onto the mined area — returning AOC essentially without spoil fills.)
Insofar as “open acres,” that is also a disservice for many, many reasons. Besides its inclusion of acres that are never-ever mined (every mining permit includes some acreage to insure boundaries are stayed within), there are no distinctions made for the degrees of disturbance (like roads, parking areas vs excavation pits) or the extent of reclamation already completed.
I would have been nice (and still would be) for GAO to provide case studies on several mine complexes — or better yet, on a couple of entire counties — to actually show in detail such complexities that I have just noted, as well as, others.
Lastly, what GAO discovered, but did not report, was the complete lack of recordkeeping by OSMRE on the amount of area being mined and types of mining occurring in addition to the inconsistencies and inaccuracies of the databases by the states. That was the real finding from your review.
For example, about six months ago, I compiled the permits on which bond forfeiture orders (not neccesarily the actual forfeitures of bonds) that occurred throughout the U.S. from 1980 to 2008. See: http://groups.google.com/group/bob-mooney/web/walk-away-reclamation . Too many of these coal mining operations were never reclaimed due to inadequate bond amounts or other reasons, like surety insolvencies…or state regulatory authorities not taking timely actions on date-limited letters of credit that were posted as bonds.
I have asked and re-asked OSMRE for information on its inspectable units inventories and about permits that never got reclaimed. Maybe OSMRE will respond to you since they have not to me.
I also went through the OSMRE inspection database and discovered its contents to concerning — a sizeable number of inspections being shown as done on Saturdays and Sundays which cannot be correct.
See: http://groups.google.com/group/bob-mooney/web/days-when-osmre-inspects
I hope this information is useful to you.
Respectfully,
Bob Mooney
http://tinyurl.com/rhmooney
[...] The U.S. Government Accountability Office (the GAO) has released its second major report on mountaintop removal coal mining in the last three months. (See previous post here). [...]