Coal industry supporters sat at a table in the HCTC conference room during Monday’s open house, hosted by the Office of Surface Mining, to gather public comment on proposed rule changes affecting surface coal mining. (photo by Ivy Brashear)
OSM wanted to gather public comments about their newly proposed change to stream protection regulations that would have the potential to place more strict restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining. They just wanted them submitted quietly, either in writing, dictated to a court stenographer or through email.
Chris Holmes, the media relations person for OSM, said submitted comments are exactly what OSM wants from the series of six open houses they’ve hosted across the country.
“We want comments from people who are involved and take time to look at the concepts, examine them and give us thoughtful comments back,” Holmes said. “That’s the best we could ask for.”
The different format did not deter people on all sides of the issue from attending the six-hour-long open house to submit their comments.
“This has been the largest attendance of the five open houses they’ve had so far,” said Chief of the Regulatory Division of OSM in Washington, D.C., John Craynon. He added that before the open house started, there were 25 people waiting to get in to make their comments.
“We’ve had a lot of interest, and I think that reflects the importance of the coal industry and these issues in this community,” he said.
That sense of importance is what many at the open house said brought them to the First Federal Center to tell OSM just exactly how important clean water and/or the coal industry is to them.
Ralph Hogsden, a surface miner who works for Enterprise Mining in Knott County, said he was at the open house to support coal. He said he’s been a miner for 33 years and doesn’t think new regulation about water need to be made.
“I think this new law they’re trying to pass on the water permit things … is a joke,” Hogsden said. He added that he wasn’t sure what else agencies like the EPA and OSM wanted from coal miners, and that continuing to regulate the industry would effectively shut it down.
He said if the industry shuts down a lot of people who rely on the industry to make a living will be put out of work.
“The coal industry has provided a lot of livings,” Hogsden said. “For me, [it’s provided] for 33 years. It’s raised my family, put my kids through school … it’s just provided a good living for me.”
Hogsden said mountaintop removal mining provides both money and recreation areas for people to use.
“They (environmentalists) talk about tearing up big majestic mountains,” Hogsden said. “But what I want to know is, how many of them’s been out there walking on those big majestic mountains before we uncovered them?”
He said he felt OSM chose the open house format because they knew a lot of miners in this area would become “fractious over some of their (OSM) silliness,” and said that OSM was misrepresenting the coal industry with the information they were giving to those attending the open house.
“I don’t know what they’re (OSM) going to do,” Hogsden said. “I guess they’ll find out when the lights goes off.”
For others at the open house, the issues surrounding mountaintop removal were more personal, as was the case with MaryEllen Kelley.
Kelley said she came to the open house with a group from Virginia called Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, and that she was at the meeting to give comments because she had been “victimized by mountaintop removal.”
She is originally from Perry County and said she found out several years ago that a coal company was suing her because they claimed her land was a mining site, which she said was not the case.
“It’s been a bloody nightmare,” Kelley said. She said the company mined her land but did not replace the streams like they were supposed to, and all of the water on her property and in her water wells was destroyed.
Now, Kelley said that her son is ill with liver problems and her sister-in-law, who lives in Letcher County, has such a weakened immune system and is unable to be around other people and is dying as a result of her condition. Kelley said she blames the coal companies’ mistreatment of the water for these illnesses.
“OSM does need to do oversight,” she said. “They do need to take that seriously.”
Melissa Morgan said her dad had been a coal miner for over 30 years, and it was this job of her father’s that allowed two of the three sisters in her family to attend college and obtain degrees.
“It’s (the coal industry) provided for us all our lives,” Morgan said.
Morgan, along with other employees from the Perry County Clerk’s office, had brought with them pre-written comments to submit to OSM. She said the effect would be far-reaching if a new regulation is enacted.
“I think this area would be devastated without [coal],” Morgan said.
It’s about more than just job loss for Vanessa Hall of Pike County. She said she was most concerned about the health of people living in the mountains.
“It seems to me like more and more people have cancer, more and more people have terrible diseases,” Hall said. “I want clean water – safe water.”
Hall calls herself a cancer warrior and said she thinks OSM should not even have to have open houses and make new regulations. She said she thinks those regulations should already be in place.
“We spend all this money on homeland security, protecting this and protecting that, but if we don’t protect the water, we have had it,” Hall said. “You’ve got to have clean water if you want to be healthy and you want to have that healthy, vibrant community – you have to have clean water.”
This is the crux of this issue, Craynon said. He said writing this new rule will be about how OSM can balance protecting the water with protect coal mining jobs.
“It is that balance of the nation’s need for energy and the protection of the public and the environment from the detrimental impacts of coal mining [that we’re looking for],” Craynon said. “It’s a tricky balance, and the public debate about where that balance is continues.”
He said this is why public comment from people on all sides of the issue is so important: it helps OSM find that balance. He also said part of the reason for the open house format was so the ideology of the issue at hand could be stripped away somewhat so OSM could get people to think about the basic things that everyone agrees upon.
“The bottom line of clean water is definitely something we can all agree on,” Craynon said.
Holmes echoed this sentiment, and added that the current rule that surface mining is operating under is 27 years old and is in need of an update.
“We’re bringing in new science, new technology… doing good work and continuing coal mining and coming up with the ability to produce cleaner water for everybody,” Holmes said. “There’s not a single person in this room that wants to drink dirty water.”
The open house was open on Monday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., and all comments received will be considered when the first draft of the new stream protection rule is written. The time for public comment submission to OSM ends on July 30.
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