The DEP Citizens Advisory Council is scheduled to meet on November 14 to hear an update on the Act 54 program regulating the surface impacts of underground coal mines.

The last report on the effectiveness of the Act 54 program was in 2015 and covered mining between 2008 and 2013.  The report was done by a University of Pittsburgh team with expertise in mine engineering, hydrogeology and ecology.

Council provided comments to DEP on the report and made several recommendations.  DEP has not yet reported back to Council on the status of those recommendations or the changes it is making in the program as a result of the report findings.

Act 54 requires DEP to prepare a report on the surface impacts of underground bituminous coal mining every five years.          

2015 Act 54 Report Findings

The report documented the fact that 40 percent of streams undermined by deep coal mining operations suffered flow loss or pooling that had an adverse impact on aquatic life, pH and conductivity in the streams.

Eight of the 55 stream segments identified as being affected in the 2003-2008 report have yet to recover from the impacts of mining.

There were 855 reported impacts to water supplies from longwall mining: 393 were found to be from longwall mining, 384 from room-and-pillar deep mining, 54 from inactive deep mines and 24 from pillar recovery mining.

In one-third of the cases, the mining company was not found liable for the water loss or contamination.

Despite an 18 percent drop in the number of acres undermined, the number of water supply reported effects has increased by approximately 25 percent (855 from 683).

It took an average of 220 days to resolve water loss/water contamination issues either through permanent replacement water supplies, repair of the water well or agreements for compensation with landowners.

A total of 201 water loss/water contamination cases were not resolved by the end of the 2008-2013 reporting period.

There were 389 cases of reported damage to surface structures of which 238 were determined to be caused by mining: 315 from longwall mining, 48 from room-and-pillar, 19 from inactive deep mines and 7 from pillar recovery mining.

It took an average of 169 days to resolve cases of surface structure damage.

Other Agenda Items

Also on the agenda is a presentation by Resource Environmental Solutions, LLC on emerging trends in ecological offsets and DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell’s report to Council.

The meeting will be held in Room 105 or the Rachel Carson Building in Harrisburg starting at 10:00.  There is an option to attend the meeting by conference call: 855-734-4390, PIN 839252#.

The Council’s next meeting is on January 16.

For more information and available handouts, visit the DEP Citizens Advisory Council webpage or contact Lee Ann Murray, Executive Director, by calling 717-787-8171 or send email to: LeeMurray@pa.gov.

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[Posted: Nov. 6, 2017]

11/13/2017