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East Lynn mining proposal questioned
The East Lynn Lake and Damsite Thursday, August 28, 2008, at East Lynn Lake.
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EAST LYNN -- A proposal to conduct underground mining operations near East Lynn Lake in Wayne County is garnering concerns from residents, elected officials, geologists and the federal agency that manages the property.
But another federal agency that has the final say has given preliminary approval to the project, based on a draft report paid for by the two coal companies that want to do the mining.
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Rockspring Development and Argus Energy, both of which have existing underground mines on private property in Wayne County, want to lease 13,089 acres of government-owned land within the boundaries of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' East Lynn Lake project, which is about 24,000 acres.
The Corps of Engineers spent $37 million on acquiring property and building East Lynn Lake in the 1960s and another $55.5 million between 1977 and 1991 to acquire mineral rights around the lake to protect it from problems that come with coal mining.
But when the Water Resources Development Act was passed in 1999, Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., successfully inserted an amendment that removed the Corps of Engineers' consent authority over the mineral rights at East Lynn Lake. The amendment instead placed that authority with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Applications from coal companies to lease the public land soon followed.
Today, East Lynn Lake remains the only publicly-owned property in the nation where the Bureau of Land Management can bypass approval of the surface management agency (in this case the Corps of Engineers) to lease mineral rights, according to bureau officials.
Argus and Rockspring would mine approximately 26 million tons of coal on the East Lynn Lake property over a 10- to 15-year period, according to the most recent draft environmental impact statement on the proposal. They would use underground "room-and-pillar" mining methods to extract the coal. No surface mining would be performed, according to the 359-page draft report.
The proposed mining area would come as close as 200 feet to the lake and 1,580 feet from the earthen dam, according to the draft report.
The report was prepared for the Bureau of Land Management by Golder Associates, a global environmental consulting firm. The coal companies selected Golder Associates from three firms that submitted proposals to the bureau, according to bureau officials. The coal companies paid Golder Associates approximately $1 million to prepare the draft report, said Randall Maggard, environmental compliance manager for Argus Energy's Kiah Creek operation.
The draft report is now open to a public comment period, which ends Sept. 24. The Bureau of Land Management recommends in the draft report that the coal lease proposals be allowed to proceed.
"Though not a final agency decision, the preferred alternative (approving the coal lease) represents the BLM's view of the appropriate management direction at this stage in the environmental review process," the draft report states. "The BLM's preference may change based on comments received from other agencies and the public."
The Bureau of Land Management could make a decision on the coal lease application as early as spring 2009, said Marcia Sieckman, supervisor of natural resources for the bureau's Milwaukee, Wis., field office, which is reviewing the application.
However, the Wayne County Commission and state Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone, have asked the bureau for a 90-day extension on the comment period, Sieckman said. Rahall has asked the bureau for a 180-day extension at the request of constituents.
One of those constituents is Joseph Stanley of Prichard. A retired coal miner of 17 years, Stanley uses the lake property frequently for fishing and hiking. Stanley supports coal mining in West Virginia, but he said the proposal at East Lynn Lake is too much of an environmental risk.
"I'm worried about the integrity of the lake and the dam," Stanley said. "Under the conditions proposed in this report, you might as well let a bomb off over there.
"Those coal companies would be out of there in 10 to 15 years, but Wayne County could spend 100 years cleaning up their mess."
Ethical issue cited
The Corps of Engineers did not buy mineral rights when it used its eminent domain powers to purchase the land for East Lynn Lake in the 1960s. In 1977, six years after the lake was completed, the Corps began buying the mineral rights.
The biggest block of mineral rights came from Columbia Gas, according to the real estate division at the Corps of Engineers' Huntington District office. The Corps of Engineers used eminent domain to acquire 16,286 acres of mineral rights from Columbia for an estimated $7 million. But it ended up having to pay Columbia $55 million for the mineral rights in a court case.
Rights to another 7,500 acres were purchased from various parties for $575,000.
Equally bothersome as the environmental concerns that come with the coal lease proposal is the ethical issue, Stanley said. The Corps spent millions acquiring people's property and mineral rights to build a lake in the name of improving water quality, flood-reduction measures and recreation, he said.
"To condemn people's property and then turn around years later and allow a coal company to come in and benefit off the land is truly wrong," Stanley said. "It's criminal."
Rahall said he took away the Corps of Engineers' consent authority over coal lease proposals at East Lynn Lake because every time the Bureau of Land Management received an application, the Corps refused to review it.
The breaking point, Rahall said, came in 1997 when Pen Coal (the company went bankrupt and later became Argus Energy) submitted a lease application and the Corps of Engineers refused to look at it.
"Instead of giving it a fair look, the Corps reiterated a history of any coal mining abuse they could come up with that ever took place in Appalachia," Rahall said. "This caused a great deal of concern among the miners and the Wayne County Commission. After a year of discussions with the Corps and growing frustration because of their refusal to even comment on the lease application, I took action by removing its consent authority in order to level the playing field."
Rahall said he isn't taking a position on whether the coal lease should be granted. He also said he was not aware that Argus and Rockspring selected and paid the consultants that wrote the draft environmental impact statement.
"I don't even know who the coal companies are," Rahall said. "That's definitely of concern. If leasing does take place, I would expect mining to be done as to protect the lake, the dam and the surrounding environment."
Corps, geologist have concerns
The Corps of Engineers is not taking an official stance on the coal lease proposal either. Corps of Engineers spokeswoman Peggy Noel said the agency's role now is to help the Bureau of Land Management make an informed decision.
"We've submitted written statements to the BLM about the concerns we have for this action, and it's based on our expertise and knowledge of the East Lynn Lake project," Noel said. "It is operated and maintained by the Corps as a flood-damage-reduction project, but it also was built for recreation, water quality and fish and wildlife enhancement. The Corps wants to maintain and ensure that the project purposes are not compromised."
The Corps of Engineers submitted 23 pages of questions and concerns about the proposal and the draft environmental impact statement to the Bureau of Land Management in December. The Herald-Dispatch obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request.
In the documents, the Corps of Engineers questions whether it or an independent entity should have reviewed the contract between Golder Associates and the coal companies to write the environmental impact statement. The Corps of Engineers also takes issue with conclusions made about the lease proposal and its potential impact on the environment in the coal company-funded report.
"Coal extracted from beneath the proposed lease tracts, to be processed at existing facilities, would increase the volume of material subject to weathering and related chemical and biological processes, and would most probably increase the severity and duration of related surface and groundwater degradation within East Lynn project drainage and the lake," Corps officials wrote in one section.
"Significant long-term adverse impacts are expected to result from the proposed action," they wrote in another section.
The Corps of Engineers' concerns are backed by Ronald Martino, a geology professor at Marshall University who has taught courses in coal geology. Martino has reviewed the draft report on the coal lease proposal and attended a public hearing on it last month.
"It's almost possible to mine coal in this area without adversely impacting groundwater and surface systems," he said. "For this report to say this is not going to have an impact is quite misleading."
Martino said the public land that Argus and Rockspring want to lease contains several stream and vegetative patterns called lineaments. These lineaments indicate the coal seam that the companies want to extract coal from and the ground above it is fractured, he said.
If the lease is granted, water will slowly percolate through the fractures and into the mined-out areas, essentially creating an underground reservoir, Martino said. The question is whether the 200-foot block of coal that would act as a buffer zone would be strong enough to hold the reservoir back from the lake, he said.
"You're potentially looking at the same scenario that occurred at Inez, Ky.," Martino said, referring to the Oct. 11, 2000, incident in which more than 300 million gallons of water and coal slurry drained from Martin County Coal's Big Branch impoundment into an adjacent underground mine. Approximately 245 million gallons of the water and slurry discharged from the underground mine and affected more than 75 miles of streams in Kentucky and West Virginia.
Martino also noted there are maps provided by the coal companies in the draft report that show several permitted areas under private land that have not been mined yet. These areas are next to the tracts of public land that the companies want to lease, but farther away from the lake, he said.
"From looking at the maps, it appears to me that the area permitted under private land is about as big as the public land that they want to use," Martino said. "It's not like they're running out of coal."
Maggard, the environmental compliance manager for Argus Energy, said the proposed coal lease would extend his company's operations in Wayne County by 15 years. The company could mine for another 10 years with its current coal reserves on private land, he said.
More than 600 people work at Argus Energy and Rockspring Development mine operations in Wayne County, Maggard said. While neither company is proposing to add new jobs if the coal lease is approved, it would ensure that those jobs will be around for another 10 or 15 years, he said.
"We don't want anything negative happening to the lake," Maggard said. "That's why we're looking at the safest mining techniques available for this proposal."
How to comment on project
The Bureau of Land Management is accepting written comments from the public about the proposal to lease mineral rights at East Lynn Lake to Argus Energy and Rockspring Development. Comments will be accepted through Sept. 24, unless the bureau extends the comment period.
Written comments may be sent by fax, mail or e-mail. E-mail comments must include a name and mailing address.
- To mail comments, send them to Bureau of Land Management-Eastern States, Milwaukee Field Office, ATTN: Chris Carusona, 262 E. Wisconsin Ave. Suite 200, Milwaukee, WI 53202.
- E-mail comments should be sent to EastLynnLakeComments@blm.gov.
- Faxed comments should be sent to 414-297-4409.
For more information about the comment period or to obtain a copy of the draft environmental impact statement, call Carusona at 414-297-4463.
