WORC in the News

Montana rancher tells congressional committee that stripmine law lacks enforcement
Testimony urges more congressional scrutiny and reclamation improvements

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Billings, Mont. - A Montana rancher told a Congressional committee today that the law regulating coal mining is basically a good one but is poorly enforced.

Testifying before the House Natural Resource Committee on the 30th Anniversary of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA), Ellen Pfister, a Bull Mountain rancher representing both the Northern Plains Resource Council and the Western Organization of Resource Councils, cited three failures with the act:

• SMCRA does not control impacts of the surface effects of longwall mining except at the mouth of the mine.
• The act did not anticipate the expansion of mountaintop removal in Appalachia.
• Coal mining companies do not reclaim water resources because the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), the administering agency, has inadequately enforced the law.

Pfister said the mining companies and regulatory agencies do not protect or adequately replace groundwater aquifers damaged by mining. “We don’t have mountaintop removal in the West, but we have aquifer removal,” she said.

“I do not believe there is anything especially wrong with SMCRA, with the exception of not covering longwall mining and not coping with mountaintop removal, but I do believe that as an agency OSMRE has long been lacking intent to enforce SMCRA as it should be enforced,” Pfister told the committee.

Pfister’s ranch north of Shepherd, Mont., has been subject to proposed coal mines since the 1970s. She testified before the same committee in 1972 on a bill to temporarily ban stripmining, and she worked for passage of SMCRA. Her ranch is affected by the Bull Mountain coal mine, a longwall underground mine.

Longwall mining is an automated form of underground coal mining, feasible only in relatively flat-lying, thick, and uniform coalbeds. A high-powered cutting machine passes across the exposed face of coal, shearing away broken coal, which is continuously hauled away by a floor-level conveyor system. Water supplies, land, and buildings are often damaged by subsidence after the coal is removed.

According to Pfister, very little mined land in the West has been fully reclaimed and had the bonds released. OSMRE data show that 22,905 acres have been reclaimed in the last ten years, while 400,000 acres were disturbed by new mining during the same period.

She urged Congress to conduct more oversight of OSMRE, hold more hearings, demand improved reporting, provide more funds to OSMRE and the state agencies administering the programs, and require improvements in reclamation. She also suggested that the agency prohibit issuance of new mine permits or expansions in areas where stripmined land remains unreclaimed after more than ten years.

Signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on August 3, 1977, SMCRA set rules for surface mining and reclamation of mined land and provided for transfer of inspection and enforcement authority to states with approved programs.

Northern Plains is a grassroots conservation and family agriculture group that organizes Montana citizens to protect water quality, family farms and ranches, and unique quality of life.

WORC is a regional network of seven grassroots community organizations, including Northern Plains, in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Wyoming.