PITTSBURGH (AP) - The Pittsburgh Botanic Garden has spent more than a decade cleaning up the damage from a half-century of coal mining.
“I’m sure there were times that people thought, ’Let’s forget this site and find a pristine location somewhere else,’ ” said Bob Hedin, an environmental consultant who has helped guide the North Fayette facility through years of cleaning acid mine drainage from the abandoned deep mines and remediating surface-mining activity that scarred the land. “The challenges have been very, very large.”
The garden is one of many examples across Pennsylvania of how today’s generations are paying for mining practices of years past. The results of lax regulations and practices from the first half of the 20th century can be seen in coal waste piles, open pits, exposed rock walls and acid-tainted creeks that dot the landscape.
A collapse in the U.S. coal industry over the past two years raises concerns that taxpayers could bear the burden for another generation of environmental woes if bankrupt companies abandon mines again. The concern is especially high in states such as West Virginia and Wyoming that relaxed rules on the bonds that companies must post, leaving less money to pay for potential cleanup.
Pennsylvania regulators say a strong bonding program and oversight will protect the state from such a scenario.
“In general, we have full-cost bonding for these sites, based on the amount it would take for the commonwealth to reclaim them,” said Thomas Callaghan, director of mining programs for the Department of Environmental Protection. The state has more than $1 billion in surety bonds and cash from companies to cover 625 permitted sites where coal and other minerals are mined.
Environmental advocates question if that is enough.
“It doesn’t appear to be as dire a situation as other states face, but I would certainly not say that Pennsylvania taxpayers are by any means secure from significant harm in the future,” said Patrick Grenter, director of the Washington County-based Center for Coalfield Justice, a nonprofit that monitors coal activity and permits.
Self-bonding concerns
Reclamation costs vary widely, depending on the scope of mining on a site.
Clarion County-based Neiswonger Construction recently finished remediating a 30-acre strip mine abandoned long ago in Hanover, Washington County, for $328,685. In March, the DEP awarded a $13.5 million contract to Kittanning-based Rosebud Mining to clean the long-vacant Ehrenfeld Mine near Johnstown.
The legacy of such expensive environmental damage colors any claims that the state or industry won’t repeat their mistakes, environmentalists say.
Coal leaders say state rules and improved practices by companies will protect the environment.
“These bonding requirements make certain site reclamation work is completed, as the amount of the bond is based on the specific site and takes into consideration backfilling, regrading and revegetation,” said Rachel Gleason, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance, an industry group based in Harrisburg.
Regulatory changes nearly 40 years ago attempted to eliminate environmental risks by requiring coal companies to post a bond that would cover the cost of reclaiming and remediating land and water affected by their operations. Some states undercut that safety net in recent years, though, by allowing firms to “self-bond,” putting up their company value and reserves as collateral instead of a surety bond or cash.
As self-bonded companies make their way through bankruptcy, many worry there will be no money left to cover remediation.
“We’re going to leave behind an enormous legacy of damaged and scarred lands,” Larry Schweiger, president of the environmental group PennFuture, said before a hearing in Pittsburgh last month on the federal coal-leasing program.
Bristol, Va.-based Alpha Natural Resources, which owns the Cumberland Mine and shuttered Emerald Mine in Greene County, filed for bankruptcy last year and has nearly $650 million worth of self-bonded obligations. A bankruptcy reorganization plan approved last week will help ensure money is available for remediation, the company said, although several groups and agencies objected to the plan because of concerns it will shortchange cleanup efforts.
Pennsylvania allows self-bonding, but no company has requested it here.
“We have pretty robust self-bonding regulations that require an operator to submit a series of financial tests, a report from a CPA,” Callaghan said.
A test of the system
Companies interested in mining in Pennsylvania follow a process that began in 1980 and has been strengthened since: In filing for a permit, they must calculate how much it would cost the state to backfill any pits, clean drainage, regrade and replant the site if the company can’t do it. DEP engineers confirm the calculations and the company posts that amount either in cash, or through a surety bond underwritten by an approved agency.
The bond is reviewed at least every five years during permit renewal, and DEP inspectors constantly check sites “to see if the footprint of the mining project is the way it’s been designed in the application,” Callaghan said. “If it’s larger than it should be, we send a bond demand letter to them to get additional bond.”
If a company forfeits its bond, the state contracts out the site’s reclamation. A surety company also can work to have the site fixed, with DEP’s approval.
John Stilley, owner of Butler-based Amerikohl Mining Inc., said improved environmental practices among producers and the strong bonding program make Pennsylvania “significantly better off than we were” before 1980.
“This will be the test of all those bonds,” said Hedin, whose Mt. Lebanon-based firm focuses on mine drainage and reclamation projects.
Grenter questions whether industry calculations of reclamation are sufficient to cover actual costs if companies start walking away from operations as the industry struggles.
“We’ve seen this time and again. We’ve also seen how volatile the industry is right now,” he said.
’What we can do’
The volatility - U.S. coal employment fell by 29 percent since 2011, as production decreased by nearly 20 percent - has made it hard to estimate the full environmental risk, some say.
“We are starting to really look at this, but we can’t even give a scope yet or fully define what the problem is,” said Davitt Woodwell, president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. “For us, it’s another wave of potential negative legacy sitting on Pennsylvania, where for so long we and other groups have been focused on abandoned mine land trust funding and getting those monies put into play.
“This is another layer on top of that legacy stuff.”
The Abandoned Mine Lands trust serves as the vehicle for fixing damage from mining before the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act established bonding programs in 1978. It is funded by a fee collected on every ton of coal mined today and paid for projects such as the Ehrenfeld Mine cleanup.
The Pittsburgh Botanic Garden recently received $370,000 of that federal money - filtered through the DEP’s Growing Greener fund - to continue cleaning water there tainted by acid mine drainage.
“Three years ago, the water flowing to the Lotus Pond was toxic. Nothing could live in it,” Hedin said. “Now, it’s a beautiful horticultural feature. It’s really a good testament to what we can do.”
Sidebar:
Mining again
When a wave of mine closures swept the coal industry in the 1980s, Butler-based Amerikohl Mining Inc. struck deals with bondholders and the state to take over bankrupt companies’ sites, finish mining and complete the reclamation of about 17,000 acres.
“There were zero tax dollars used,” said company owner John Stilley. “We were able to get it done by avoiding the red tape and bureaucracy.”
Amerikohl has 25 coal and quarry sites under permit. The company targets partially mined properties - many abandoned by companies decades ago - and finishes removing the coal, then remediates the land.
Such remining operations are an effective approach to cleaning up land left scarred by less-efficient strip mining practices of the past, said Bob Hedin, owner of Hedin Environmental. As a consultant to the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, he has worked with two companies that remine coal there while remediating the land.
“The problems get fixed during the remine, and there’s a new bond to cover it,” he said, noting the garden and outside groups are planting trees on land shortly after contractor Cherep Excavating pulls coal from it and reclaims it.
“They should be encouraging this,” company manager John Cherep said.
Stilley said his company plants hundreds of thousands of trees a year. Last year, it won six Keystone Reclamation Awards from the DEP and the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance.
“We’re always growing grass and trees on something that was active no more than six months ago,” Stilley said.
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Information from: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, https://pghtrib.com
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