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This article originally provided by The Courier-Journal

Mine expansion in middle of fight

Reclamation buries natural streams

By James Bruggers

HYDEN, Ky. -- Giant earth-moving equipment groans under tons of rock that has been blasted from a mountainside at the Thunder Ridge mine to expose a seam of coal underneath.

The debris is being dumped in one of two hollows freshly scoured of trees and brush. Once the hollows are filled, they will be graded, planted with vegetation, and rocky riprap channels will replace the natural streams that once drained them.

The Thunder Ridge mine is undergoing a planned 1.5-square-mile expansion that, since December, has become the newest front line in a national battle over mountaintop removal and other surface mining methods.

The Kentucky Waterways Alliance and the Sierra Club have had recent success using the courts to slow the Thunder Ridge expansion, and 20 legislators from both parties are listed as co-sponsors for a bill in Frankfort called the "Stream Saver" that would put new rules on mining practices statewide.

The bill hasn't gotten a hearing since it was introduced three years ago, but on Thursday activists will hold an "I Love Mountains" day at the state capitol that includes an 11:30 a.m. rally in support of the bill that would prevent filling streams with waste rock.

The coal industry acknowledges surface mining isn't pretty.

It creates a "massive disturbance," said O. Eugene "Gene" Kitts, a senior engineer with International Coal Group, which operates Thunder Ridge, during a January tour of the mine. But with reclamation, he insisted, damage is only temporary.

"Long term, if it's done correctly, it will have (positive) long-lasting effects on a place like this," Kitts said, surveying what had been a hilly terrain and is now largely flat from horizon to horizon.

He pointed out some of the thousands of oak and pine saplings the company planted last year on mined-over land, and said he expects a commercial forest some day. The flattened land also is a valuable asset for development in mountainous terrain, he said, noting that much of nearby Hazard's growth is on mined land.

Environmentalists are skeptical that forests can thrive on the rocky surfaces, and say mining has already made enough of Eastern Kentucky flat for development.

"People in Kentucky understand that their mountains are being stripped away, and it's reached a crisis point, and we need to do something about it," said Joe Lovett, a West Virginia-based attorney with the Appalachian Center for the Economy & the Environment, who is working with the plaintiffs in the Thunder Ridge lawsuit.

While foundation-rattling explosions and coal-hauling on narrow roads are often the first complaints from mountain residents, the latest dispute centers on the streams that are filled in with waste rock that's been blasted from the tops or sides of mountains. They are the start of such rivers as the Kentucky and the Big Sandy, which eventually flow into the Ohio.

Some streams -- including several that stretch about 2.5 miles at the Thunder Ridge mine -- were approved in December to be filled under a permit written by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Louisville.

Because these types of streams typically don't flow year round, mining industry representatives often refer to them as dry ditches. But ecologists say they are vital to the health of the local environment as well as the waterways they feed.

Where they see ecological impoverishment, others see opportunity.

Phillip Lewis, who owns 200 acres near Thunder Ridge, granted ICG permission to fill the hollow above his home. Lewis, an attorney, acknowledged that he's being paid for use of his land, but he said that's not what matters most.

"I hope to get some flat surface, and hope to be able to use it for my cattle and construction," Lewis said, adding that he believes a new pond and riprap channel will improve runoff.

"I don't see the fuss."

Buried stream by buried stream, however, the toll of surface mining increases.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2003 estimated that 1,200 miles of headwaters streams in Appalachia were "directly impacted" by mountaintop mining and valley fills between 1992 and 2002. And the federal Office of Surface Mining last year counted hundreds of more miles that were being impaired.

At Thunder Ridge, the expansion would generate 4 million tons of coal over six years, Kitts said.

Up to 20 million tons have already been removed from the mine, which covers nearly 7 square miles, company officials said.

That's roughly the same as an area extending from the Ohio River south to Churchill Downs, and from Cave Hill Cemetery in the east to South 22nd Street in the west.

The environmental groups' lawsuit against the corps, filed in U.S. District Court in Louisville in December, challenges the corps' decision that allowed streams to be filled in five valleys, and saying a mitigation plan is flawed.

After work on the first two began in December, the corps in January blocked the three others, agreeing to take a second look.

It was the first time the Louisville office had done that.

The corps still defends its actions, noting that ICG has agreed to improve stretches of other impaired streams in the region, and it will put $711,000 into a state fund used to improve water quality in the same watershed, said the corps' Lee Anne Devine.

The Stream Saver bill, sponsored by Rep. Don Pasley, D-Winchester, faces a major challenge. House Natural Resources and the Environmental Committee Jim Gooch, D-Providence, said he has not decided whether to allow a hearing and vote – though he said he'd likely hold hearings on water quality in general.

"I'm sure mining contributes some (pollution)," he said. "So does road building."

Kitts said the industry is fighting for survival. He argues that surface mining opponents are also opposed to waste rock fills from underground mining.

"It's hard to avoid the fact they are simply trying to stop mining."

Critic Raleigh Adams, a retired underground miner who lives in Leslie County, said it's only the surface mining that's "terrible. If they can't get (coal) any other way, I'd just as soon they not get it."

Bill Caylor, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, said the Stream Saver bill would stop all coal mining because valleys are sometimes the only practical place to put waste rock.

The industry is bluffing, countered Teri Blanton, a Berea resident and former chairwoman of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, which is organizing Thursday's rally. "They would have to do it a little more responsibly rather than just blowing up the mountain and putting it over the side."

Reporter James Bruggers can be reached at (502) 582-4645.

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