Category Archive for "Abandoned mines"

It looks like any hopes that the Obama administration was going to increase spending on abandoned coal-mine cleanups in Appalachia — creating a potentially huge number of green jobs for the coalfields — have been dashed.

I’ve written before about how Obama’s preliminary budget proposal appeared aimed at redirecting more money from the Abandoned Mine Lands program to Appalachian states, where it’s really needed. See previous posts here, here, here and here. But based on the new budget documents released yesterday, that’s not really what the Obama proposal will do.

If you missed it, a brief summary: Back in February, the Interior Department announced that Obama’s 2010 budget proposal would include a major change in the federal Abandoned Mine Lands program.Â The president was going to stop sending federal money for mine cleanups out to states (primarily Wyoming) that have already “certified” to the government that they have cleaned up all their abandoned coal mines.

The idea had a nice note of common sense to it, as summarized in a DOI budget summary document that said the administration proposed:

Terminating payments to coal-producing states that no longer need funds to clean up abandoned coal mines.

Doing this would free up this money — $142 million next year, increasing to more than $200 million by 2014 — to be used to reclaim abandoned coal mines in the states that, because of their long history of coal production before regulations, had the most abandoned sites. That includes West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, places where coalfield communities would likely be hurt the most by Obama’s other priorities — like tightening regulations on mountaintop removal (if he actually does that) and capping greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Drainage from an old abandoned mine in East Bank caused a massive mudslide on Monday that closed W.Va. 61. Gazette photo by Rusty Marks

Blowouts and runaway mine discharges are in the news this morning in West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky.

We’ve got an updated Associated Press story on the blowout in Leslie County, Ky., on our Web site here.

And here in Kanawha County, W.Va., a blowout from an abandoned mine has caused a mudslide that has a highway blocked and a school closed in the East Bank area. We’ve got a story on that here, and Gazette reporter Rusty Marks was up there taking photos and will be updating our coverage.

In the Kentucky situation, officials are reporting that the 10,000-gallon-per-minute discharge is polluting Robinson Creek. But for some reason, the AP is taking the line in this story that it’s not that big a deal to have a blowout that pollutes streams — like it’s a normal cost of the coal business — as long as no one is hurt and there are no evacuations:

A mine blowout in southeastern Kentucky was releasing thousands of gallons of water Sunday from an underground mine that had not been used since the 1970s, but no injuries or evacuations were reported, state officials said.

“We’re not looking at hillside failures,” said Paul Rothman, spokesman for the state Energy and Environment Cabinet. “We don’t see that happening here.”