MORGANTOWN — Two U.S. Department of Interior officials joined Rep. David McKinley on a visit to the site of the Richard Mine outlet into Deckers Creek, where a discharge treatment plant is planned for construction next year.
The stopped capped a tour of West Virginia by U.S. Department of Interior Deputy Secretary and Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement Principal Director Lanny Erdos. They opened a new visitor center in Canaan Valley on Thursday, and on Friday visited various mine sites along with representatives of the state Department of Environmental Protection.
MacGregor’s aim, she said, was to see the positive side of coal programs relative to Abandoned Mine Lands program funding, and how Interior partners with the state to clean up mine sites. “I think that’s a positive story that doesn’t get a lot of attention.”
Erdos said he worked for 12 years designing AML projects before managing the program. AML has distributed more than $6 billion to coal producing states. “We look forward to continuing partnering with West Virginia. We’re going to do everything we can to ensure that the AML program continues to do the work that it’s done.”
AML, authorized by the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, funds abandoned mine reclamation through a per-ton fee on produced coal. Interior reports it has collected $11.5 billion over the year and distributed $5.9 billion. A portion has gone to other uses, including benefits for retired miners, and $2.2 billion remains unappropriated.
AML authorization expires next year and reauthorization is currently tied up in the Senate.
Friday’s conversations bounced between plans to clean the Richard Mine acid mine drainage (AMD) and AML reauthorization, which are linked.
The Dominion Post previously reported that the Richard Mine project will proceed in two steps: first a bridge will be built across the creek to allow access to the plant; the current bridge upstream of the outlet is privately owned.
There is no construction timeline yet, because certain metal components need to be fabricated and the project could be delayed anywhere from six weeks to six months after it’s been bid out in order to get the steel for the bridge. The estimated cost was $1.2 million.
OSM and DEP are working together to develop the active treatment plant. DEP anticipates plans for it sometime in November.
DEP Division of Land Restoration Director Rob Rice described the project to McKinley and the Interior officials. The AMD, loaded with metals, runs clear from the mine portal. It has a pH of about 3.5 and the metals don’t become apparent until the drainage hits the higher pH creek. There; the orange iron and white aluminum, manganese and magnesium precipitate out and stain the water and the creek bed.
The plant will add alkaline to the AMD; clarifiers will then separate the metals out and allow for clean discharge into the creek. If settling ponds are needed, they’ll sit a bit downstream. When the plant is built the discharge point will move downstream about 150 yards.
The metallic sludge pulled from the water will either be pumped back into the subsurface portion of the mine pool – if you’re looking at the outlet from W.Va. 7, the lower part of the pool is off to the left under the hill – or stored in geotubes. Geotubes are huge, porous textile tubes that allow water to drain out while retaining the metals.
Rice and McKinley both noted that the geotubes could prove useful in the future if research can produce a viable U.S. Rare earth elements industry. As previously reported, China supplies 90 percent
of these metals used in hybrid cars, wind turbines, fuel cells and portable electronics. But they can be found here in coal ash and mine drainage. Until then, geotubes can also be used to backfill mine highwalls.
AML program
Rice told the officials that DEP places a part of its AML grant into an AML Set-Aside Fund and uses the interest to cover operations of systems like the Richard Mine plant.
MacGregor said she plans to work with Congress to make sure AML gets renewed.
McKinley said, “What we’re trying to do is educate more people about the value of the AML.” AML money funded work by DEP, Friends of Deckers Creek and the National Resources Conservation Service to treat Deckers Creek above Richard and bring it back to life.
On Friday, two rainbow trout could seen swimming near the privately-owned bridge across the creek about 100 yards up from the mine outlet. The creek remains dead below the outlet.
“It doesn’t reflect well on us if we don’t take care of our environment,” McKinley said. Despite the discord in D.C., “I think one thing we’re all unified on is we’ve got to clean up our water.”
Two bills to dealing with AML were put into HR 2, the Moving Forward Act, and passed the House. The Senate, it is reported, is not taking up all of HR 2 but instead looking at portions of it. The AML portions are before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is ranking member.
McKinley said Matt Cartwright, a Pennsylvania Democrat, and Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, have other bills to reauthorize AML. “The bottom line is we all know we have to do that. The question is what funding level is it going to be. … We’ll work something out. Most of us understand the value of the AML.”
Another challenge, McKinley said, is that as coal production continues to dwindle, AML faces an uncertain future funding stream. Other ways will have to be found to allow AML to keep working, especially if talk to end coal production by 2035 comes to fruition. “We have short window to keep our fossil fuel industry operating in West Virginia and around the country.”
Manchin told The Dominion Post in an email, “With AML fees set to expire next year, I introduced the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Fee Extension Act to extend the AML fee for 15 years at existing rates so taxpayers don’t get stuck with the bill. I will continue fighting to pass this legislation to support our coal mining communities and call on my bipartisan, bicameral colleagues to support this extension.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said in an email, “An AML reauthorization will require negotiation and compromise between senators from different regions of the country and from different political parties in order to become law. As negotiations begin on legislation to reauthorize the AML program, I will continue working with my colleagues to make sure that West Virginia’s environmental remediation efforts, the state’s economy, benefits for retired coal miners, and jobs for active coal miners are all protected.”
Tweet David Beard @dbeardtdp Email dbeard@dominionpost.com
