[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ABANDONED MINED LAND RECLAMATION NEEDS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA ANTHRACITE
FIELDS
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 24, 2000, SCRANTON, PA.
__________
Serial No. 106-82
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
house
or
Committee address: http://www.house.gov/resources
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
67-088 WASHINGTON : 2000
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana GEORGE MILLER, California
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
ELTON GALLEGLY, California BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland Samoa
KEN CALVERT, California NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
RICHARD W. POMBO, California SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
Carolina Rico
WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
CHRIS CANNON, Utah PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
KEVIN BRADY, Texas ADAM SMITH, Washington
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
RICK HILL, Montana DONNA MC CHRISTESEN, Virgin
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado Islands
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada RON KIND, Wisconsin
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana JAY INSLEE, Washington
GREG WALDEN, Oregon GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania TOM UDALL, New Mexico
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina MARK UDALL, Colorado
MIKE SIMPSON, Idaho JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey
Lloyd A. Jones, Chief of Staff
Elizabeth Megginson, Chief Counsel
Christine Kennedy, Chief Clerk/Administrator
John Lawrence, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held January 24, 2000.................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Gekas, Hon. George, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Pennsylvania, Prepared statement of............... 8
Holden, Hon. Tim, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Pennsylvania............................................ 24
Prepared statement of.................................... 26
Kanjorski, Hon. Paul K., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Pennsylvania.................................. 19
Prepared statement of.................................... 22
Sherwood, Hon. Don, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Pennsylvania...................................... 9
Prepared statement of.................................... 11
Staback, Hon. Edward G., a Representative in Congress from
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Prepared statement of.... 57
Young, Hon. Don., a Representative in Congress from the State
of Alaska.................................................. 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
Statement of Witnesses:
Blanchard, Mary Josie, Assistant Director, Office of Surface
Mining, U.S. Department of the Interior.................... 31
Prepared statement of.................................... 33
Campbell, Bradley M., Regional Administrator, Environmental
Protection Agency, Region III.............................. 41
Prepared statement of.................................... 43
Carlo, Laure, Legislative Assistant.......................... 55
Dolence, Robert, Deputy Secretary for Mineral Resources
Management Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
Protection................................................. 49
Prepared statement of.................................... 51
Donlin, David A., President, Economic Development Council of
Northeastern Pennsylvania, Executive Director, Schuylkill
Chamber of Commerce........................................ 109
Prepared statement of.................................... 111
Hughes, Robert, Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned
Mine Reclamation........................................... 151
Prepared statement of.................................... 154
Klemow, Kenneth M. Ph.D., Certified Senior Ecologist and
Botanist, Professor of Biology, Wilkes University.......... 124
Prepared statement of.................................... 127
McDade, Joe, Prepared statement of........................... 16
McGurl, Bernard, Executive Director, Lackawanna River
Corridor Association....................................... 114
Prepared statement of.................................... 117
Rogers, Alex E., the Upper Susquehanna-Lackawanna Watershed
American Heritage Rivers Initiative, and the Pennsylvania
GIS Consortium............................................. 138
Prepared statement of.................................... 140
Skrip, Andy, Vice President, Scranton Chamber of Commerce.... 95
Prepared statement of.................................... 99
ABANDONED MINED LAND RECLAMATION NEEDS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA ANTHRACITE
FIELDS
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MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2000
House of Representatives,
Committee on Resources,
Scranton, Pa.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:30 p.m., in
the Collegiate Hall Room, Redington Hall Building, University
of Scranton, Scranton, Pennsylvania, Hon. Don Young (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
The Chairman. The meeting will come to order. Please take
your seats.
The Committee on Resources is meeting today under its
oversight jurisdiction to take testimony on the subject of mine
land reclamation needs of the Pennsylvania anthracite fields.
Congressman Don Sherwood of the 10th District, a valued Member
of the Committee, has graciously hosted our visit to this
historic region. I'd like to thank the University of Scranton,
as well, for making this venue available to us, and the efforts
of all involved today to coordinate our tour we had this
morning.
Seeing with my own eyes the magnitude of the environmental
impacts of the unreclaimed coal mines and the facilities of
this area will help guide my understanding of the testimony
which we are about to hear.
I understand that this great coal-bearing region was where
our Nation's industrial revolution first took hold. Some 7
billion tons of hard coal had been mined from Eastern
Pennsylvania since 1769--and that estimates are about 20
billion tons remain in the earth here. Furthermore, my
understanding is the demand for your coal gives way as
bituminous coal elsewhere was found to be more economic to mine
in those areas.
For many decades the hard coal from the Lackawanna Valley
and nearby fields fueled the forges of our Nation's industry,
fired the boilers of our locomotives and heated many homes and
took care of the barge and railroad network which grew up here
for the coal market. It's your historical legacy and one in
which I am sure the folks of Scranton and Eastern Pennsylvania
are quite proud and rightly so.
Unfortunately, there is an environmental legacy that
followed from your industry, as well. The hard coal was mined,
broken and shipped under few regulations then, but the
environmental consequences of these practices did not really
hit home until our Nation became wealthy enough to afford a
clean and safe environment.
I was in my third term in office when Congress enacted the
Surface Coal Mining Reclamation Act of 1977. This law made it a
national policy to require more stringent regulations of active
coal mining and required reclamation plans backed up with
financial guarantees to ensure the restoration. The feds
stepped in because it was widely perceived that the states were
lax in their own regulations out of concern that the operator
would simply move if the rules were too tough in their states.
The states were allowed to seek enforcement practices under the
new Federal agency and the Interior Department, the Office of
Surface Mining but the feds were there to oversee the state
need to commit them to the task.
This is all well and good for active operations, but the
Congress decided that mining disturbance made prior to 1977
ought to be reclaimed too and recognized in many cases the
former operator had no obligation under state law to do so.
Thus, the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Trust Fund was
established to create a funding source to begin to tackle this
problem and a delivery mechanism to get the money out for on-
the-ground remediation.
Congress estimated that 15 years of the AML fee levied on
every ton of coal mined in the county would provide the
necessary funds. In 1992 we extended this fee collection
through Fiscal Year 2004 and provided the trust fund to earn
interest with a diversion of a portion of the interest into the
health benefits fund for retired coal miners and their
dependents.
During debate on the establishment of the AML funds, many
states were concerned that the producers would pay into the
fund for reclamation projects elsewhere so Congress obligated
by guarantee that every AML dollar collected from active
producers within a state--50 cents would be dedicated within
the fund for ultimate appropriations back to that same state.
The remainder would be known as the secondary share to pay for
Federal emergency programs and additional grants to states
based upon their historic production. Western members
understood this would be a net transfer of funds from the coal
states to the West, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and New
Mexico, but this was the compromise that was reached.
So what is the problem? Why are we here today? Well, like
the Federal Highway Trust Fund which grew fast from gasoline
taxes levied for years, which were not sufficiently
appropriated back for more roads and bridges, the AML fund too
was used to disguise the true size of the Federal operating
budget deficit for many years. OSM would collect the AML fees
and send it to the Treasury but our budget enforcement rules
kept both the Congress and the President from spending on
reclamation that is about half of what had been collected each
year. Instead, an IOU went to the treasury but the real money
went to pay for the Government program that lacked a dedicated
funding source. So the states who had been promised a return of
at least half of their collection had to wait and frankly are
still waiting.
OSM records indicate that approximately 49 million dollars
worth of IOUs to Pennsylvania are in the AML fund, the state's
share balance, which doesn't take into account the funds which
your commonwealth is destined to receive from the historic
production factor in the secondary share.
For comparison purposes, I note that the state with the
most to complain about is Wyoming because the Governor is
sitting on 258 million dollars of its guaranteed share. Please
remember that the interest earned on the AML fund balance goes
into the secondary share and not the state's so that the 50
cents on the dollar promised to states is more like 40 cents or
less by the time the states see it.
Frankly, another broken promise to the states has been the
Land and Water Conservation Fund of 1965, in which the Federal
Government dedicated 900 million dollars of annual out
continental shelf oil and gas royalties to efforts for
conservation of environmentally sensitive lands, half to
Federal agencies and half to the states. However, the budget
priorities have seemed to prevent full funding of this program
and often no significant funding for state grants at all.
But there is hope. The Conservation and Reinvestment Act of
2000, which I am the sponsor of and negotiated a fair amendment
with the ranking Democrat of my Committee, Congressman George
Miller of California, would put an end to such broken promises.
If enacted, H.R. 701 will ensure that 3 billion dollars per
year of the 6 billion dollar annual OCS royalties collection
flows to the seven conservation programs in this bill.
Pennsylvania would see nearly 50 million dollars each year,
much of it to be managed directly by your Governor and
legislature and the remainder by Federal agencies operating
within the commonwealth's boundaries.
I am not suggesting that Pennsylvania's entire share should
be dedicated to AML. We will hear some other ideas today.
Indeed, there are constraints as to how the states may spend
their funds within several of these programs, but very frankly
Pennsylvania might decide to spend some of this money in
solving some of the reclamation priorities.
My bill has been heard, debated and passed out of the
Resources Committee, awaiting action by the full House of
Representatives. I am proud to report that Don Sherwood joined
with me in supporting the amended bill adopted in a strong
bipartisan fashion last November. Likewise, Governor Tom Ridge
has written to us with his support for CARA. Both these
gentlemen understand that for too long we have passed
legislation authorizing programs which ultimately lack the
needed funding.
Other legislative fixes for abandoned mine land restoration
efforts, including those in Pennsylvania, must not suffer the
same fate. Today's record will be compelling, I am sure, from
the testimony of the witnesses who will appear, for freeing up
AML trust funds owed to the commonwealth, as well as
establishing a need for some funding mechanism beyond 2004. But
let's not lose sight of where the money comes from and
recognize it will be a battle to be sure because frankly other
states will demand the money but this area deserves it because
of historical value.
I want to thank all of you, my staff, Mr. Sherwood for
hosting this while the Committee holds this hearing in
Scranton. Before I turn over the opening statement of Mr.
Sherwood, I'd like to make note that our present colleague
George Gekas from the 17th District of Pennsylvania has talked
to us many times on this subject, as far as reclamation--is
unable to join us today. He has contacted me regarding this
important issue, as I mentioned before, as late as last night.
I now would like to recognize my good friend, a member of the
Committee, for an opening statement and then we will have our
first panel up. I'd like to recognize Congressman Don Sherwood
for his statement. Mr. Sherwood.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Young follows:]
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Gekas follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7088.003
Mr. Sherwood. Good afternoon. First, I'd like to thank my
chairman, Don Young, for agreeing to hold this extremely
important hearing to focus the Resources Committee's attention
on the challenges still facing the anthracite region of
Pennsylvania in reclaiming our land and water.
This morning Chairman Young agreed to go to fly over some
of the abandoned mine sites to view first-hand the culm piles,
the acid mine drainage and the open strip-mine pits that are
all too familiar to those of us whose home is in Eastern
Pennsylvania--and I think it made an impact. Thank you again,
Chairman Young, for your interest.
I'd also like to acknowledge my colleagues in the House,
Congressman Paul Kanjorski and Tim Holden, who will both
testify today, and Congressman George Gekas, who has submitted
a statement for the record. Thank you, Congressmen Kanjorski
and Holden, for your determination and hard work to elevate
this discussion and to focus Washington's attention on the
unmet reclamation needs of the anthracite region. I believe
that by continuing to work in a bipartisan manner, we will
prevail in creating greater awareness and national interest in
reversing the scars of coal mining.
Last but not least, I want to thank all of the witnesses
who have agreed to testify today. I want to mention in
particular Andy Skrip from the Scranton Chamber of Commerce and
Bernie McGurl from the Lackawanna River Corridor Association,
who live and work here in the 10th District and bring their
many years of experience to the discussion.
I also am happy to mention that former Congressman Joe
McDade, who I wanted to testify, has sent us a statement but he
just couldn't be here in person. Mr. McDade worked very hard
over his 36 years in Congress to improve the lives of
Northeastern and North Central Pennsylvanians. But he also
knows that there's a long way to go. He wanted me to thank you,
Chairman Young, for making this a priority for the Resources
Committee and for inviting him. Joe will submit a statement,
and I have it here, which I am sure will shed some valuable
light on this problem.
The Chairman. Without objection, so entered.
Mr. Sherwood, thank you. As we hear the witnesses today
recount the history and the subsequent demise of anthracite
coal mining and the current efforts to reclaim the use of the
lands and waters polluted by it, I believe that similar themes
will be recounted by many of us. Anthracite coal literally and
figuratively fueled the industrial revolution and helped us to
win two world wars, but in the process the coal mining
devastated the landscape to such a degree that it will take
decades to restore at the current rate.
The Abandoned Mine Land Trust Fund is not being used in its
entirety to fund reclamation activity and it should be. As any
economic development person will tell us, Northeastern
Pennsylvania is greatly hindered by the existence of these
unreclaimed sites. A new industrial plant or a new firm--when
the CEO of a new firm who is interested in our area comes and
looks it over, they often decide that they do not want to
locate their new plant in sight of the ravages of past mining.
That has been a fact that has hindered our development.
All of these statements are considered true by interested
groups, environmentalists, lawmakers, business people,
academics and government experts. What's not so easy to come to
agreement on is how to accelerate the cleanup. Do we increase
funding for reclamation? Do we rely on technology to increase
the speed and efficiency of the cleanup? Do we enhance existing
programs to coordinate the reclamation efforts? Or do we create
new programs? And we will hear various ideas today.
My inclination is that the answer lies in some combination
of better technology, increased funding and a heightened
interest and awareness nationwide. The purpose of this hearing
is both to focus the attention of the Congressional Committee
overseeing abandoned mine reclamation on the magnitude of the
problem and to begin to create a consensus about answers to the
questions that we have posed. What can we do to make things
better? The people of the anthracite region are ready and more
than capable of making things better, but we need some
concerted help from our government, the business community,
academics and environmental groups.
What's often lost in the discussions and debates about the
legacy of coal mining and its environmental impact is the pride
of the people in the region in the accomplishments of their
family members who worked in the mines. Chairman Young today
has already gone a long ways in acknowledging the nationally
significant impact of the coal mining heritage by allowing my
bill to recognize the Lackawanna Valley as a national heritage
area to move forward in his committee.
Mining has provided steady work and a chance to fulfill the
American dream for over a century for immigrants wanting a
better life. This legacy endures in the work ethic and the
tenacity of Northeastern and Central Pennsylvanians. Even
though anthracite coal mining created substantial adverse
environmental impacts to our area, it also greatly contributed
to the current prosperity of our country. Now it's payback
time. If we can tap into that prosperity and harness the
ingenuity, the work ethic and the tenacity of the people of the
region to figure out how to solve the problem, I have no doubt
that it will be solved. The wealth that was created by mining
anthracite coal in Eastern Pennsylvania is gone but the scars
remain. Today is our day to start the process to correct that.
I look forward to hearing the witnesses' testimony and
thank you again for taking the time to be here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sherwood follows:]
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[The prepared statement of Mr. McDade follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7088.010
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman. A few ground rules for
the witnesses that will appear. I run a fairly tight ship. I
say fairly because I used to be in that business of a very
tight ship. I will be under the 5-minute rule and don't be
offended because your written testimony will be put into the
record, the full content. And I say that at every hearing that
I conduct because I think it's no more than fair to address the
witnesses that are going to be here. I might allow a little
latitude to my colleagues because politicians have a tendency
to talk too much anyway but not too much--let's put it that
way.
But with saying that I would like to call at this time Paul
Kanjorski of the U.S. Congress and the Honorable Tim Holden,
from Pennsylvania 11 and Pennsylvania 6. I guess that means the
Districts 6 and 11. Am I correct?
Mr. Sherwood. That's correct.
The Chairman. See, I don't have that problem. I've got just
one big district. With that I'd like to have, Paul, you start
the testimony out and then we will have Tim and then if we have
some questions, hopefully you'll be available to answer them.
Paul.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PAUL K. KANJORSKI, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Kanjorski. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I've had
the pleasure of being in your lovely state so I know you're a
key person who flying over the beauty of Northeastern and
Central Pennsylvania appreciate what devastation has occurred
because of past practices. And I don't want to spend my time on
reiterating a great deal of Mr. Sherwood's statement because
all of it is correct. We know where we are and I want to thrust
some of the ideas that we have as to what we can do to help
cure the problem.
First and foremost, let me put it into context. Although
Mr. Sherwood, Mr. Holden and I--ever since we've come to
Congress and long before--have been heavily involved in
economic development and restoration of the coal lands of
Northeastern Pennsylvania, it really wasn't until this summer
when I flew across the country with the President and went to
various economically distressed areas--in discussions that
night, the President said see if you can find any commonality
in these areas and then come up with some demonstration ideas
of what we could do.
And over the course of that week I gave it a great deal of
thought and almost every airway we went to, from Nazareth,
Kentucky, to the Black Hills of South Dakota to the ghettos of
Los Angeles, they all reflect a certain commonality in that
they suffer from an inferiority complex as a result of some
material lacking, either in the environment or in the basic
necessity of educational level of the population or something--
or the loss or lack of investment capital. All of these areas
have substantial deficiencies unaddressed and undirected to,
regardless of what we do beside that. We really can't start to
move these distressed areas.
And I was particularly struck that clearly in Northeast and
Central Pennsylvania through the years of endeavors of Members
of Congress, like Dan Flood and Joe McDade and many of my
present colleagues, we've made strides and Northeastern
Pennsylvania is better off today than it's ever been
economically in my lifetime. But we aren't getting there and we
can't get there for a simple reason and that is our environment
both land and water was so materially devastated by past
practices that there seems to be an inferiority complex locally
among the citizenry that they can't expect or exact excellence
either from government or from business or from themselves in
their communities, and second that we just can't correct the
things ourselves and therefore we're not going to get to the
level of average middle class economic existence in this area
of the state. I think the resolve of how to address that has
been handled. A lot of positive past legislation that clearly
has failed.
The Office of Surface Mining I think will testify--or
certainly in my discussions with them, they know that what
presently exists is not nearly enough, is not properly funded
by the Congress, is not executed by the Administration
regardless of what Administration it is, to get this job done.
In reality, Mr. Chairman, you put your finger on our
problem. This is not something that can be afforded on a year-
to-year appropriation basis because regardless of how high at
any one significant time people of this country focus on an
environmental problem of this nature, you can't sustain that
focus over the years necessary to make the major improvements
and investments necessary to recover. So as a result even if we
increase the mine fund, even if we challenge more of the mine
money for a few years, that would be perfectly good. Changes in
the political structure of the country and the attention of the
country would deplete the attention and focus on this
particular area or other coal lands in the country.
So what I prepared at a request of the President was a memo
of how we could demonstrate what we could do not only in
Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania but some of the other
waste coal lands across the country which are quite significant
but nothing quite to the extent of the anthracite field. So
first we isolated a field that we could do a demonstration
project in and that's clearly the anthracite field. It's
contained in only 12 counties of Eastern Pennsylvania, no where
else in the country except a little smattering of anthracite
coal in your home state. It was the early material and there is
not the capacity to get the local community to support or pay
for the recovery program on a very simple basis; they didn't
cause it, they didn't benefit from it and if they pay for it
they'll not reap the benefits in their lifetime because it
won't be completed for 25, 30 years so there's no incentive for
the local community to tax themselves and assume that burden.
And I may say in defense of the coal mining industry across
the country, as we look at the legislation of this new fund, it
is rather harsh to create a tax that makes it uneconomical for
these companies to exist today to pay for a process that they
did not cause, they did not benefit from and they will not
benefit in the future from and yet we're doing that. By putting
a tax on coal in Montana or in Wyoming, we're basically saying
you're paying back for something that a coal operation long
gone in Eastern Pennsylvania has caused.
Now, what--the approach that I gave to the President was
simple, to get a demonstration project, identify our 12 areas
and then find a financing vehicle that could allow us to have a
certainty of money so that we could plan, design and implement
all in a period of 20 or 25 years and we would know for certain
and never have waste or overlap of the process. We have started
on that. We now have underway a GIS system which will encompass
3,000 square miles of Eastern Pennsylvania in the most
sophisticated GIS system available, making it much more
efficient and cost wise much lower to examine and engineer the
land recovery program. That's already started, enacted by
Congress, undertaken by the Core of Engineers, EPA and other
agencies of the Federal Government so that within 2 years we
will have the most sophisticated GIS system to make the
recovery possible of the land and the water.
The next problem however is the Office of Surface Mining.
Regardless of how many allocations--if we double the
allocations of 9 million to 18 million dollars, it's a
pithering of what we need. It would take us 100 to 150 years at
that rate to make a recovery. So what I've suggested in my
proposal is to create tax credits by the Federal Government to
independent bond holders--and I've had the insurance industry
show great interest to buy these bonds if they are structured
the way we've been designing them over the last several months,
and that is to have the Federal Government through the
Secretary of Interior or Secretary of the Treasury authorize an
authority created by the State of Pennsylvania to issue 1.2
billion dollars in bonds, and it's in lieu of paying interest,
to allow the buyer of those bonds to take a Federal tax credit
of whatever the municipal tax rate is at that time at the sale
of the bonds. It would cost the loss of revenue to the Federal
Government of somewhere around 50 million dollars a year for 30
years and the bond issue will be paid off in a self-created
sinking fund. So the entire investment of the Federal
Government to accomplish this end would be approximately 1.5
billion dollars.
By building the mechanism of arbitrage with--the money
actually would be about 2.4 billion dollars that would be
available for expenditures, almost 100 million dollars a year
in a well-conceived plan with proper financing under anthracite
bonds or other type bonds with Federal tax credits, we could
bring back this area both economically and environmentally to
the stage that it was in that we could all make the speech some
day that we had a dream and the fact is the dream would be that
we recovered our land back to the status and the way it existed
when the Indians first settled this area. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Paul, for a very eloquent
statement. Tim.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kanjorski follows:]
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STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TIM HOLDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Holden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank
you for holding this hearing and I'd also like to thank Mr.
Sherwood for hosting us here in Lackawanna County and his
leadership on this issue as well as my good friend Congressman
Kanjorski.
Mr. Chairman, I have a statement that I will submit for the
record to avoid being redundant. I'd just like to briefly
summarize it. But quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, you summarized
my statement when we were flying in the helicopter earlier
today. When we came into Schuylkill County and we were over
Mahanoy City and Shenandoah and Girardville, as we looked out
at all the coal operations that are currently working and ones
that have been abandoned, you looked at me and you said, wow,
we have a lot of work to do and we certainly do have a lot of
work to do.
As sons of the coal region we are all proud of what a great
interest that we had in developing the Industrial Revolution in
this country, how we fought two world wars that was fueled by
anthracite coal, as Mr. Sherwood mentioned. We are all proud of
that. But what has been mentioned, there has been some very,
very unfortunate consequences and as a result of that we are
left with scarred land that makes it very, very difficult for
our economic development people to attract industry or convince
industry to expand and also that our environmental problems
with our rivers and our streams and the acid mine drainage that
we had a chance to see first-hand.
I believe in Lackawanna County I think that was that we
could see that the water was basically orange as we looked out
the left side of the aircraft and as we looked to the right it
was of course blue. So again there are very, very tremendous
problems that we are facing and it has been something that has
been going on for well over a hundred years in this part of
Pennsylvania. Federal and state laws came into effect I believe
in the mid 70's to late 70's and since that time we've been
able to reclaim land but there was a hundred years of damage
that was done before that. We do not want to interfere with
commerce or any of the production that is going on in
anthracite currently.
I think that there's a need to look for alternatives of
anthracite coal. I know Paul Kanjorski and myself are
constantly doing that and there are several plans we are
looking into but we need to clean up what was done before the
Federal and state government stepped up to the plate and did
the right thing. So Congressman Kanjorski has put forth a plan
that I've looked at very closely and I think it has merit and
it certainly should be part of the discussions.
There are other vehicles that we also need to explore, and
you mentioned it in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, how
the Abandoned Mine Trust Fund is being used for other
Government expenditures and Government operations just as the
Highway Trust Fund was used. We were able to correct that and
we need to do that with the abandoned mine trust fund also.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, I want to again thank you for
holding this hearing and look forward to the testimony this
afternoon.
The Chairman. Thank you, Tim. Do you have a written
statement you are going to submit for the record?
Mr. Holden. Yes.
The Chairman. Without objection, so entered.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Holden follows:]
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The Chairman. I'd just like to remind Paul we haven't
addressed one issue that--I don't know how we're going to get
around it--with your bonds issue, it would probably not come
under our jurisdiction and that probably goes to Ways and Means
and that's something we will have to figure out how to do
because they're not inclined sometimes to do such things.
Mr. Kanjorski. Mr. Sherwood has been talking with the House
leadership and there seems to be some indication and a
willingness to certainly seriously look at it but this
Committee will have jurisdiction over the second part of the
idea, the process of creating a specific Federal corporation
for administration. Our problem has always been institutional
members, Mr. Chairman. None of us will be here 25 or 30 years--
either hopefully we will be on the face of the earth but we
probably won't be in office.
The Chairman. I am not going anywhere.
Mr. Kanjorski. We need a special structure and we have
suggested a trust be established as a very lean and mean
organization to make sure everybody does what they can do and
bring all the parties, Federal, state, county, local and
business community, together to accomplish that and keep it
together.
The Chairman. You mentioned bonds. Have you explored the
concept of the state issuing the bonds with a Federal
guarantee?
Mr. Kanjorski. Well, actually an authority bond. The state
has an authority's act and it allows the various counties to
get together and form a municipal authority, multi-county in
size, and then the Secretary of the Treasury or the Secretary
of Interior would empower that authority under certain
conditions that would be expressed in the indenture to issue
those bonds with a Federal tax credit. We have done that.
There is one example of school bonds that are presently
being done by the Federal Government for that purpose. The
President has made the suggestion of Better America Bonds for
green ways. It's the same type of funding mechanism. But what
it allows us to do, it's really creating within our non-capital
budget structure a capital budget rather than relying year to
year on appropriations and authorizations that tend to go up
and down with economics and with politics. But to do long-term
planning and long-term implementation of that planning, it is
not the most effective and efficient way to accomplish the end
of something that is large, 120,000 acres, 3,000 square miles,
to attend to.
The Chairman. I can tell you that one of the things both of
you mentioned that pleases me is that you're not trying to
punish the industry or what's left of it, although we do have
the Super Fund and in the Super Fund we do punish industries
that had nothing to do with the problems that happened a
hundred years ago. So I am pleased to hear you say that because
this is a very tenuous market right now. The price is not good
and I am glad to hear that the present miners following the
rules are not being punished for what was done. Actually, the
most damage was probably done during World War II.
And we ought to make an issue of that, too, by the way,
Don. When you think about it, this area has built the tanks and
built the military might that defended this country in one
major war on two different fronts and that should be something
we can sell as part of the problem. Coal was mined very rapidly
to fill furnaces and build those hard-shell tanks and
everything else was done because we were at conflict. A lot of
things we do in war we wouldn't do ordinarily so that's one of
the major problems. I don't have any other questions at this
time. Mr. Sherwood.
Mr. Sherwood. Well, I listened with interest to both and
they outlined the problem very well. And with Paul's bonds, we
just have to see if that's an issue that can be worked through
Ways and Means and that we can get people's attention on. And
it's intriguing in that it doesn't require an appropriation. It
just requires the Government to decide that we are willing to
forgo the interest that those bonds would normally pay and then
make fiduciaries like insurance companies would pick them up so
if it's a 1.2 million dollar issue that would normally pay a 6
percent tax free and that's how you come up with
approximately--or 50 million dollars a year in deferred revenue
to the Government. It's a very interesting idea and we will
have to work it through.
The Chairman. I would like to ask one other question and
maybe a couple more. You've stated, Paul, your frustration with
Federal rules contracting out grants, funds, et cetera. Have
you discussed this with the Administration about any ideas how
to streamline the process? You heard me today on the
helicopter, I've been so frustrated in my state with the money
that's dumped into the agencies that never gets to the ground.
Mr. Kanjorski. Absolutely. Mr. Chairman, that's why we're
suggesting the corporation, just to remove it from the
bureaucracy and allow an administrator appointment by the
President and confirmed by the Senate, to have a very lean and
mean organization of 25, 30 people with the purpose of
oversight, direction and assistance but not to manage it. Let
it be managed on a local level.
We've got some already good examples of organizations that
are taking on earth conservancy in my district. That's 17,000
acres of land that they've been making restoration on for about
5 years now, very efficiently, every effectively at about half
of the cost of what the Federal Government normally spends for
that type of process.
Second, you want to encourage local planning and
participation, how the land will be used, what it will be done
for, and to help plan out the use of that long into the future.
This should not be a top-down project of the Federal
Government. This should be locally--how we can help is to
provide the security that the financing will be in place to
implement the final plan. But let the localities, the
communities and the state decide their plans in the various
areas, go about it and do it in a very efficient way and allow
them even to operate countercyclically; that when unemployment
goes up that they can put a fence in the field but when we're
in a high type point like this, let's not be counterproductive
to the business community.
Mr. Sherwood. Paul, have you thought about Section 148 in
the IRS Code which I am familiar with from school district
bonds? We're not allowed to earn arbitrage and arbitrage is one
of the main features of your plan. How do we get around that?
Mr. Kanjorski. OK. I've been meeting with Gene Spurling at
the insistence of the President and with Treasury officials and
we already have some very strong indications of a willingness
to allow arbitrage to a much longer period of time than it is
in existence but I still think we should take it out 20, 30
years. I think we can get an accomplishment of that because as
long as the arbitrage funds go for the intended purposes,
there's no abuse of that authority and that's exactly what we
do. All this money in the bond issue as arbitrage would be
returned back and paid up--the long-term end sight of the
reclamation work.
Mr. Sherwood. I understand its use but that means we have
to have a policy change, a new ruling.
Mr. Kanjorski. No. Actually, in the enactment of the bond
itself we can accomplish that. It's very simple. If we left it
out entirely, we would have the right to arbitrage indefinitely
but we can waive this particular provision or put in a special
provision for arbitrage.
The Chairman. Now I'd like to call up the second panel,
Mary Josie Blanchard, Assistant Director, Office of Surface
Mining, U.S. Department of Interior; Brad Campbell, who had the
pleasure of riding with us today on the helicopter, from the
Environmental Protection Agency, Region III; Robert Dolence,
Deputy Secretary of Mineral Resources Management, Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection; Laure Carlo,
Legislative Assistant, the testimony for Edward Staback, House
of Representatives, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I'll tell you
what we're going to do, is I call out Mary Blanchard, you are
up first. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MARY JOSIE BLANCHARD, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, OFFICE
OF SURFACE MINING, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Ms. Blanchard. Thank you, Chairman Young, Representatives
Sherwood, Kanjorski and Holden. My name is Mary Josie
Blanchard. I am the assistant director of the office of
surfacing mining. With me today is Bob Biggie who is in charge
of our Harrisburg field office and Gene Krueger who's in charge
of our division of reclamation support.
On behalf of Director Karpan and Secretary Babbitt, we
appreciate the opportunity to appear here in Scranton before
the Committee on Resources regarding abandoned mine land
reclamation in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania.
The abandoned mine land program does three things. It
removes health and safety detriments, it improves the
environment and it restores resources to make available for
economic development. When the lands and waters are restored,
jobs are created, the infrastructure can be improved,
individuals can develop a sense of pride in their community and
the stage can be set for economic growth.
As you know, coal operators pay a fee to the abandoned mine
land fund to reclaim and restore areas affected by past mining.
In total the industry has paid approximately 5 billion dollars.
Through Fiscal Year 2000, Congress has appropriated 4.2 billion
for the purposes of reclaiming land and water. Once funds are
appropriated then OSM grants money to the states and tribes
based on an established formula.
For the last several years, Pennsylvania has received
approximately 24 million dollars a year. For Fiscal Year 2000,
the abandoned mine land grant will be 26.6 million dollars; the
largest grant to any state. Once a state receives its abandoned
mine land funds then the state sets the priorities on the
funding for the specific reclamation sites.
Abandoned mine land problems are found nationwide but are
highly concentrated in Appalachia. According to the information
in the abandoned mine land inventory system, the cost of
reclaiming Pennsylvania's inventory of sites would be 4.9
million dollars. Of that, anthracite's region claims
approximately 1.9 billion dollars. Almost half of these costs
are associated with acid mine drainage.
To deal with the number-one water quality problem in
Appalachia, acid mine drainage, OSM created the Appalachian
Clean Streams Initiative in 1995. Under this initiative the
Office of Surface Mining provides grants to states to attract
funds from other public and private organizations for restoring
streams with acid mine drainage. The combined effort magnifies
the effectiveness of any one group of funds.
Pennsylvania receives approximately 1.7 million annually in
clean streams funding, which is more than any other state. An
example just right here is in McDade Park where the clean
streams initiative will restore Lucky Run. As part of the clean
streams initiative, OSM began the Watershed Cooperative
Agreement Program last year with local nonprofit watershed
organizations that are already improving the water quality in
their own communities. In fact, one of the first cooperative
agreements was for the Carbon Run site in Northumberland
County. Funding of 22 thousand dollars will be used to install
a passive treatment system to reduce iron loading in Carbon
Run.
In order to proceed more quickly with reclamation work, in
1990 the Administration proposed an increase in appropriations
such that by Fiscal Year 2003 it is hoped that appropriations
would equal revenues from the fee on coal production. As a
first step toward that goal, the Fiscal Year 2000 budget
proposed 211 million AML appropriation which would have been a
25 million increase over Fiscal Year 1999. The final AML
appropriation for Fiscal Year 2000 dollars is 196 million,
which is a 10 million dollar increase over the previous year
funding. The Administration is committed to increasing the AML
appropriations because it would be tangible economic and
environmental benefits in a short period of time.
In summary, a core mission of OSM is the reclamation of
land and water damaged by a century of coal mining activities.
Nowhere is that legacy more evident than in the anthracite
region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. EW Technologies in
mapping, treating abandoned mine lands and waters are providing
better and more efficient treatment each year. Yet, after a
century of cumulative pollution, there is still much work to be
done. We are committed to finding better and more effective
ways to restore land and water to productive use. We should
appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Committee,
especially here in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania, and
to testify on this issue. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Brad.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Blanchard follows:]
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STATEMENT OF BRADLEY M. CAMPBELL, REGIONAL ADMINISTRATOR,
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, REGION III
Mr. Campbell. Chairman Young and Members of the Committee
present, good afternoon. My name is Bradley Campbell. I am the
Regional Administrator for EPA's Mid-Atlantic Region which
encompasses Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia,
Delaware and the District of Columbia. Thank you for the
invitation to talk this afternoon about the impact of abandoned
mine drainage on the streams and on the economy of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
As, Mr. Chairman, you, and the Members present witnessed in
dramatic terms today, 175 years of coal mining in Pennsylvania
has left a legacy of approximately 15 billion dollars worth of
abandoned mine problems that dot the landscape in 45 of the
state's 67 counties. The figures speak for themselves. More
than 2,500 miles of streams polluted by acid mine drainage,
250,000 acres of unreclaimed surface area, 100 million cubic
feet of burning coal refuse and potential subsidence that scars
the landscape.
In Pennsylvania alone, the acid mine drainage problem
encompassing those 2,500 stream miles accounts for
approximately 52 percent of all degraded waters in the state
and the significance of that problem from EPA's perspective,
responsible and charged with implementing the goals of the
clean water act, is clear. It is of paramount priority to EPA
and to this region that we take head-on the problem of acid
mine drainage and we do so seriously.
I appreciate the occasion of this hearing to call attention
to really three aspects of the problem, all of which have been
mentioned to some extent but which I want to highlight today in
my testimony. The first is EPA's programmatic commitment to
addressing this problem and in doing so in partnership with OSM
and the other agencies that are involved in this issue, and
particularly the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, so that we are
approaching this on a unified basis, so that we're setting
priorities jointly and so that we're exploiting the expertise
of the individual agencies that are represented.
The second is the need for public investment which I think
Mr. Kanjorski spoke to eloquently. But I want to add as well a
mention of private incentive so that not only the work of the
Federal agencies is coordinated and well supported but so that
wherever possible we have incentives in place that bring to
bear the resources of the private sector.
Just briefly, in terms of EPA's programmatic commitment,
acid mine drainage is obviously a central focus of the
Administration's clean water action plan initiated by President
Clinton and Vice President Gore. Under the framework
established by that plan and working on a coordinated basis
among agencies, the Administration is committed to--and EPA in
particular is committed to increasing to 150 miles per year the
stream miles of acid mine drainage that we're addressing on an
annual basis. We're committed to increasing by 50 percent and
have now increased by 50 percent the number of on-the-ground
projects we as an agency have or are putting in place to
address this problem.
We are also further committed, again coordinating our work
with the other agencies, to demonstrating new technologies, new
approaches that can be used to address this problem and we're
particularly thankful to Mr. Kanjorski with whose help we have
a 1.2 million dollar project on the ground that is using
constructive wetlands as a means of filtering acid mine
drainage to see--not only to address the problem in that
particular area but also to demonstrate as part of a broader
effort to try out the new technologies, as Mr. Sherwood
recognized, that we're going to need if we're going to take on
this problem in a cost-effective way of making the best use of
the public resources.
Moving to the issue of public investment, we as an
administration and EPA in particular believe that this problem
here in Northeastern Pennsylvania is typical of the type of
problem that could be appropriately addressed through Better
America Bonds. The President's proposal for a bonding mechanism
that would generate more than 9 billion dollars nationally for
precisely the types of projects that would protect clean water
from acid mine drainage, that would help redevelop the kind of
mine-scarred brown fields that dot the landscape here in
Northeastern Pennsylvania. Again, it follows the type of model
that the Chairman outlined earlier in this hearing, not
creating new Federal offices or positions but using local
initiative, locally lead projects, locally developed proposals
but funding them using a mechanism that would offer investors a
tax credit in lieu of a payment of interest to investors and we
think that's an important proposal, that it offers a great deal
of promise for this region, as I've discussed with certain
Members of this Committee, and one that we hope that Congress
will go forward with in this session. It also by the way is
fully accounted for within the President's budget proposal
which is another aspect of the Better America Bond proposal
which would allow us to move forward with it quickly.
The final issue I want to raise just briefly is that of
private incentive. Mr. Kanjorski among others has been a co-
sponsor of a bill, H.R. 1750, that in addition to the elements
of programmatic commitment and public investment, would help
bring private investment into areas that are mine scarred like
those in Eastern Pennsylvania. Specifically it's a brown fields
bill on which there's broad consensus of the elements of it but
in particular is relevant to this problem that would clarify
the rules of liability--Super Fund liability for new investors,
redevelopers, who on the margins of some of these affected
towns and communities might be able to bring greater resources
and could be encouraged to add their investments to the
solution to addressing the problems we saw today. And with
that, I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Brad, for coming. Robert.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Campbell follows:]
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STATEMENT OF ROBERT DOLENCE, DEPUTY SECRETARY FOR MINERAL
RESOURCES MANAGEMENT PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION
Mr. Dolence. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of
the Committee. My name is Bob Dolence and I am the Deputy
Secretary for Mineral Resources Management at the
Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection. On
behalf of Governor Ridge and Secretary Jim Seif, I want to
thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about mine
reclamation.
Pennsylvania's rich industrial heritage and abundant
natural resources have been and will continue to be strengths
in providing jobs for our citizens and in increasing the
prosperity and economic vitality of the commonwealth and of our
Nation. A portion of that legacy, however, is a large inventory
of abandoned mines, acid-degraded streams and unsafe shafts and
high walls around the state. Repairing that damage from the
past is one of the best ways we can improve both the economic
vitality and the quality of life in Pennsylvania in the future.
I will not provide the detail verbally that's in the written,
submitted testimony. We estimate the cost of addressing these
priority 1 and 2 problems in the anthracite region to be almost
2 billion dollars excluding AMD treatment costs.
As mentioned earlier, the AML fund established by Congress
and funded by the coal operators in Pennsylvania as well as
other mining states has been appropriated sparingly in recent
years resulting in a large balance of funds. Over 1.3 billion
dollars collected for reclamation is sitting idle while
problems are still unaddressed. It is a great frustration to
the citizens of Pennsylvania, to the coal operators of
Pennsylvania who contribute to the fund, to DEP and to this
Administration that such a large sum of money collected
expressly to meet this important need has been held hostage to
the budget process in Washington.
Getting this money released from Washington so that it can
be put to the use for which it was intended is one of Governor
Ridge's top priorities. He has personally carried that message
to Washington several times in the past and I reiterate that
request today.
For the past several years, Pennsylvania's annual
allocation from the Title IV appropriation has averaged about
22 million dollars, down from a high of 66 million dollars in
1984.
In the anthracite region, DEP has completed 306 reclamation
projects with direct construction costs of about 160 million
dollars. These projects have involved about 10,000 acres. We
believe that Pennsylvania has put to good use the funding that
we have received under Title IV, and I believe that the best
chance to accelerate our rate of progress throughout the state
is for Congress to increase the appropriations from the AML
trust.
While we cannot address all of our mining reclamation needs
throughout the state without increasing funding from Congress,
we have not rested on that hope alone for progressing. Governor
Ridge recently signed into law the Environmental Stewardship
and Watershed Protection Act, which embodied his Growing
Greener Initiative. This legislation was adopted with the very
effective help and leadership of Senator Ray Musto and
Representative David Argall, both of whom represent districts
in the anthracite region. Growing Greener is the largest single
investment of state funds in our history to help improve
Pennsylvania's environment, making nearly 650 million dollars
available over the next 5 years for grants for projects that
protect and restore watersheds.
Another legislative change that was adopted by the general
assembly on the same bill as Growing Greener was the
Environmental Good Samaritan statute. This statute provides
protection from legal and environmental liability for groups
voluntarily undertaking mine reclamation or gas well
reclamation.
The Ridge Administration is stating to the public, ``if you
take this challenge on in good faith and are not negligent in
doing so, you are protected from third-party lawsuits and with
Growing Greener, you have the opportunity for funding to assist
with the restoration.''
Additional program enhancements designed to involve public
participation and encourage more industry reclamation of
abandoned mine sites may be found in the Governor's Reclaim PA
initiative. This effort compliments Growing Greener and
Environmental Good Samaritan.
Pennsylvania coal has powered this Nation's industrial
growth in the past and it continues to fuel the industrial and
heating needs of today. Pennsylvania is committed to doing its
share and more to remedy the scars of mining that remain.
We would urge the Congress to release more of the funds
that have already been collected for reclamation so that we can
accelerate our progress in repairing the environment and
protecting the safety of our citizens throughout the
commonwealth. Thank you very much for the opportunity this
afternoon.
The Chairman. Thank you, Robert. Laure.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dolence follows:]
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STATEMENT OF LAURE CARLO, LEGISLATIVE ASSISTANT, THE HONORABLE
EDWARD G. STABACK, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMONWEALTH OF
PENNSYLVANIA
Ms. Carlo. Good afternoon. Laure Carlo, aide to
Representative Staback. I am offering testimony on his behalf.
He's in Harrisburg today.
Dear Committee Members, I appreciate this opportunity to
present testimony to the Committee. Unfortunately, since the
State House of Representatives is in session today, I am unable
to attend your meeting in person, however, I do have very
strong feelings regarding the abandoned mine projects left
undone in the Northeast and am pleased to have this forum to
share my thoughts with you.
At the beginning of the Year 2000, our state's lands remain
scarred by the remnants of its past. Pennsylvania's
contribution of coal to the Industrial Revolution of the 19th
and 20th Centuries has left a legacy of depleted, dangerous
terrain and polluted waterways throughout the commonwealth.
Over 250,000 acres of mine lands are abandoned and 2,400 miles
of streams are polluted with acid mine drainage spotting the
state with hazards to health and obstacles to growth.
Pennsylvania has one-third of the Nation's abandoned mine
lands. Currently, there are 44 underground mine fires and 34
surface mines burning; throughout the state, there are 2,400
documented health and safety hazards and the estimate to repair
our land and water is 15 billion dollars. The Department of
Environmental Protection Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation
completes around 150 projects each year through the expenditure
of approximately 20 million dollars received from the Federal
Government. Approximately 10 million dollars from that
expenditure goes to the bituminous region in Western
Pennsylvania and 10 million goes to the anthracite region in
the Northeast. From that Federal allocation, administrative
costs are taken from the top. In the northeast, after
administrative costs are subtracted, only about half of the
original allocation of 10 million dollars remains for actual
use on projects in the field. The cost to repair the projects
already identified in just my legislative district, the 115th,
is greater than the total yearly expenditure for the entire
anthracite region of Central and Northeastern Pennsylvania. At
this rate of funding and reclamation, our state's present
problems will be solved in just under 469 years. Needless to
say, that is totally unacceptable. The recent Growing Greener
law, House Bill 868, creates the Environmental Stewardship and
Watershed Protection Fund. From that fund, the Department of
Environmental Protection will receive a percentage to serve, in
part, as a state funding source for abandoned mine reclamation
projects within DEP. However, since abandoned mine projects
will compete against restoration projects for watersheds and
reclamation projects for oil and gas wells, no one knows how
much money the state will contribute in the future. Budgets for
mine projects cannot rely upon a floating percentage that has
no statutory limits. Therefore, though Growing Greener offers
potential for new state contributions to abandoned mine
reclamation, the value of that effort is yet unproven. As our
state faces the immense environmental challenge of reclaiming
its damaged lands, programs such as Growing Greener and other
related state efforts such as Reclaim Pennsylvania, frankly,
are steps in the right direction with proper intentions but
which are nearly insignificant when compared to the enormity of
the cleanup task. While these efforts are underway to scrape
together funds and stretch resources to accomplish just a few
of the health and safety projects necessary throughout the
state, the Federal Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund grows. I am
aware of the obvious budgetary maneuverings that has placed the
more than 1 billion dollars of this fund out of grasp of needy
states. However, the fund still grows. We who are involved in
this issue understand why the billion-dollar jackpot is not to
be allocated. But why should companies continue to contribute
dollars that could be spent by states on cleanup efforts to a
fund that is an established budgetary facade? The trust fund
needs no additional dollars if they are to be used merely as
accounting tools to balance the Federal budget. Obviously, the
yearly payments by mining companies at work in this state would
be best used for cleanup projects within Pennsylvania's
borders. The freezing of its assets has thwarted the purpose of
the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund. By returning the new
contributions, those yearly allocations could be spent wisely
before they are lost along with the other resources now
awaiting allocation in the fund. I urge the Committee to
support the return of these yearly contributions to the states
in which the contributing company mines. While the spoiled
lands of the northeast await reclamation, its economy and its
people suffer. Opportunities for economic rehabilitation are
lost because of spoiled landscapes and polluted waters. Simply
stated, quick and complete reclamation will result in quick and
complete economic recovery. Every dollar that is spent in mine
reclamation prepares the land for economic investment, whereas,
abandoned mines are now wasted property, each reclaimed site
becomes a land of opportunity. I have submitted a list of
projects to the Committee for its file that are identified for
reclamation within my legislative district in Lackawanna
County. Each of these sites is a present-day danger and
represents a lost opportunity for residential and economic
development. With your help, the lands of the northeast will no
longer be a scarred testament to Pennsylvania's past but will
become a reclaimed promise for its future. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Staback follows:]
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The Chairman. I thank you. I have a couple of short
questions. Thanks to the panel for your testimony, No. 1. Mr.
Campbell, we have a little problem with a lot of our agencies
in that some people don't see the forest for the trees. Are you
aware of any EPA-implemented regulations for soil, air and
water quality that get in the way of bringing more efficient
on-the-ground solutions to mine cleanup, and if so, how do we
get around those problems?
Mr. Campbell. I am not aware of any particular regulations
that stand in the way currently, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. What about the ash--the coal ash, what is it?
Mr. Sherwood. Fly ash.
Mr. Campbell. Well, I think the fly ash has not been an
obstacle of any specific reclamation project--.
The Chairman. I understand before your agency though
someone is proposing they make it a toxic--classify it as a
toxic waste--hazardous waste, and if that occurs, there's very
little chance of really reclaiming this land.
Mr. Campbell. I am aware that that is being looked at in
the context of a broad variety of uses of ash.
The Chairman. Who in the world is recommending that?
Mr. Campbell. Well, Mr. Chairman, this issue comes up in a
bunch of different contexts including areas where ash has been
inappropriately used as fill, and the agency has not proposed
to change the current regulatory structure. I think the
concerns specifically with respect to abandoned mine
reclamation have been very squarely raised to the agency, and
we will make sure that those concerns are addressed in a
common-sense way before any regulatory proposal or change is
made.
The Chairman. I am not picking on you. I just don't have a
whole lot of faith in your director and some of her ideas. I
really believe she cannot see the forest for the tress in
solving problems. You're not the only agency that does this,
because everybody can give you a thousand reasons of why you
can't do it, and yet we really still have the problem. So I
want to suggest whatever you can do, being from this region--
remind them that I am very concerned that no one makes a stupid
mistake of logically trying to solve a problem by applying some
idea out here that doesn't work. I just wanted to make sure of
that.
Secondly, you talked about in 1994 you spent $12 million.
Mr. Campbell. Since 1994, I think.
The Chairman. That's not a whole lot of money. What's in
your budget this year?
Mr. Campbell. This year we are--it's under--we're still in
the process of allocating. As you know, there was at the last
minute a cut in the overall budget, and we're as an agency in
the process of seeing how that cut is being allocated. So I
will be able to get back to the committee on the specific
allocation for this year. But even if we doubled the resources,
Mr. Chairman, as you know, and as the witnesses reflect, the
problem here would dwarf our budget even if we doubled the
resources, and that's one reason why we've seen it as a
priority to get something like Better America Bonds moving
forward so that the resources could be made available to local
governments, to communities that put together clean water
projects that would address problems like these.
The Chairman. Again, not you personally, I'd just like to
see the EPA start directing some of their real efforts toward
solving this existing problem that we know is there instead of
worrying about the particulate amount of volcanos in my State.
I don't have any way yet to put a harness on a volcano. It
might be suggested, but I am not--Congress creates a lot of
things, but I don't think we can do that. But that is really
being considered because it is the one factor that puts the
particulate amount in the air that--in human activity--that if,
in fact, the EPA's regulations were put in place, that we could
not meet air quality. And I keep saying this is a silly idea,
and nobody listens to me.
Mr. Dolence, Governor Ridge's proposal, Growing Greener,
but the bill that I've introduced here, I believe the Governor
supports that, that would bring some money into your program,
would it not, about $50 million?
Mr. Dolence. This is the OCS?
The Chairman. Yes, the OCS.
Mr. Dolence. I believe the Governor supported that in
principle, but there were some questions on the details of it.
The Chairman. But, as I understand it, I talked to him
personally, he does support it. But it would bring about $50
million into that package. Lawsuits, who would sue somebody for
trying to clean something up?
Mr. Dolence. Third-party lawsuits, sir--the impetus for the
Good Samaritan legislation was in western Pennsylvania, an
abandoned discharge known as the Langeloth bore hole. It was a
high-iron alkaline discharge from a deep mine, and a local
group had suggested building a passive treatment system to drop
the iron out so it would not discharge into the stream. A local
coal company owned the property--well, it was not responsible
because the discharge--came from the 1940's, and said, I'll
sell you the land for $1, 7 acres of prime land to build a
wetland, because the coal company did not want to be liable
under its ownership and control regulations of the Federal and
State governments.
The local watershed group went--we're worried about the
liability as well. A third party could come along and say that
is not meeting the effluent standards and then sue the
voluntary group in Federal court. And that was a concern with
many groups. They could sue in State court as well. So we
provided not only for environmental liability for those groups,
but also if someone is working there and got hurt, tripped and
broke a wrist or an ankle, but it was not due to the negligence
of the group, then that person could not sue the group as well.
It took some of those legal barriers away from those projects.
The Chairman. I think it's a great idea, but I hate to see
something discourage solving a problem, and this legislation
could do it.
Ms. Blanchard, I just want to make one comment. This
Committee that I've been chairing for 6 years has always
requested more money, about $20 million, and unfortunately I am
not an appropriator. If I had my way, we'd eliminate the
appropriating committee and the Budget Committee, and they'd
let us authorize, who listen to the people, figure out how to
do it, but we try to get the money to you because we know how
valuable it is in this total package. And we're glad to see
you're working with EPA that heads the States because this
whole thing should be a joint effort. It cannot survive on its
own, and just not on this problem of coal mines, but any other
area you're trying to make a go.
Mr. Sherwood.
Mr. Sherwood. Ms. Blanchard, I want to commend the Office
of Surface Mining and all the great projects they've had. And
as we were in the air today, you could see where these
reclamation projects stood out. Here we'd be in the midst of
devastated coal ground, and there would be a ridge or a site
hill that was planted and looked like it had lots of grass on
it, and it was a successful project. But as Laure Carlo stated
for Representative Staback, they are such a small percentage.
And I think that's something we need to stress today. All this
money that's been spent by the Office of Surface Mining, the
abandoned coal mine reclamation projects, if you get in the
air, as we did today, there are 10 or 20 times more projects
that need to be done than have ever been done. In other words,
there's a nice little green spot in the middle of all these
culm banks and high walls and strip-mine pits, and so the
process, again, as Representative Staback's testimony said, is
just going to take too long unless we find a new way to go
about it.
The question I'd like to ask you, I was very interested
that you say OSM has developed with local nonprofit watershed
organizations to improve water quality, and I'd like you to
give me some examples here in the 10th Congressional District
on how they work.
Ms. Blanchard. The one that--I am not sure exactly where
the boundaries are on--we haven't had any applications from the
10th District. This is something that when a local community
organization would approach--a watershed group would approach
the Office of Surface Mining, and then we would evaluate their
particular projects and be able to see if we're able the give
the money. But as of right now, we haven't received any
requests from the local watersheds. We would certainly
encourage local groups to be able to provide--.
Mr. Sherwood. Well, there's been tremendous work done
cleaning up the Lackawanna River and great success made, and
yet today when we flew up the river by Old Forge, you could see
it go from blue to orange and then back to blue again. So it's
just that we have those problems that we have to work on.
And, Brad, I've got to get back to the fly ash deal because
I don't think we can make that important enough. But we have
sent a letter to Secretary Browner, my colleagues and I, asking
that that be turned around because we can't understand a ruling
by EPA that would disincentivize the mine land reclamation. And
one of the things that has worked so well to clean up some of
our culm banks is the ruling a few years ago where the power
companies had to buy the power. So, you know, they're burning
all this culm, producing power, it's working, they're cleaning
things up, but then we have to use the fly ash. It has to be
land-filled, it has to be used, and to make it more difficult
sounds counterproductive to me.
Mr. Campbell. I agree. I've seen the press accounts and
some columns on this issue. Again, there isn't even a proposal
yet, but let me just offer the assurance that I will personally
focus on this and make sure that any proposal that comes
forward does not present the kind of issues you present.
And let me also acknowledge Bernie Sarnopski of the EPA
staff, who is not only an expert on this problem, but is a son
of this region, and I'll make sure that we have expert advice
to make sure it doesn't present any of those obstacles.
The Chairman. Not to pick on you, Brad, but you know the
last of the EPA under a different administration--by the way,
it happened to be my administration--they insisted upon putting
additives in our gasoline in Alaska, and we fought that tooth
and nail, and rightfully so. We find out now that someone's got
egg on their face because it creates too many illnesses, and we
said that at that time because--I don't know who ever came up
with the idea of putting this stuff in the gas. It was supposed
to make it cleaner, and instead it added formaldehyde in the
air. And we have an aversion there--I don't know if you've ever
been to Alaska--that really hurt people, but that's besides the
point.
Mr. Kanjorski.
Mr. Kanjorski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me get the
record straight in a couple of moments.
Ms. Blanchard, I think you may be aware of the fact of the
cost per congressional district of reparable land. The 11th
Congressional District of Pennsylvania has the highest price
tag, as I understand it, of the Office of Surface Mining for
cleanup and reclamation; is that correct?
Ms. Blanchard. Well, what I stated previously was that for
the whole anthracite area, that it would be--1.9 billion is the
amount that is in there right now for cleanup in the inventory
system.
Mr. Kanjorski. Right. But as I understand, the study does
it in more detail on a congressional district by congressional
district. Apparently my district, the 11th, has the highest
price tag. Mr. Rahall's district in West Virginia has the
second, and Mr. Boucher's district in Virginia has the third
highest price tag. Do you have any knowledge of that?
Ms. Blanchard. We received your letter requesting some
information on this last Wednesday, and we're in the process of
checking it out to find out exactly what it is. Certainly, as
you pointed out, it's one of the top two or three for sure.
Mr. Kanjorski. Brad, I am just going to go at you for a
second. In terms of the Better America Bonds, you know that I
favor those bonds, but unless the administration changes the
full faith and credit requirements, unless they change that,
they can only be given to local government and municipalities,
and unless they provide for the lack of comprehensive planning
that's in there now, there's absolutely no vital way for this
type of massive cleanup--that those bonds become usable.
There's no way that these 460 communities are going to come
together and just all decide on one plan. There's no way
they're going to place full faith and credit in their
communities. I mean, we can't even get that done for hospitals
and schools.
And, finally, I think not only from what you're talking
about what the EPA can do, what the Office of Surface Mining--
the one thing that's lacking here--I think that the Chairman
put his hand on in our flyover today, and you may have heard
that on the earphones when we were talking back and forth--this
can't be done on a project-by-project basis. We're going to end
up spending an incredible fortune--I think the numbers, Robert,
you gave about 10 million comes to Pennsylvania's anthracite,
and after you pay for engineering costs and administration,
only 5 million gets into the field.
Mr. Dolence. That's the construction costs.
Mr. Kanjorski. Right.
Mr. Dolence. Those are on-the-ground dollars.
Mr. Kanjorski. That's only 50 percent that gets on the
ground. From my study of these projects, it's 25 to 35 percent
end up before any work gets done on the ground because you're
going from project to project bringing in engineers from all
over the world or country that are bidding on this stuff.
They're doing individual site operations.
What we're trying to make, Mr. Chairman, evident is that
this can't be done a spotty project-to-project basis. It's got
to be done comprehensively. We've got to get a cost containment
on these engineering costs, design costs and inspection costs,
and the real dollars have to flow to the ground.
I guess what I'd like to urge our distinguish panelists--
and I happen to agree with my good friend Mr. Staback, I think
he's got it right on--but it's a responsibility of not only
myself, Mr. Sherwood and Mr. Holden to come up with some ideas
as to how we could fund this, but the agencies--you know, I am
embarrassed that we all sit here and say, well, the dispute is
whether at the present rate it's going to take 260 years or 410
years, and that doesn't make anybody slip under the table and
get embarrassed. That means we're closer to the American
Revolution than we are to cleanup, and maybe twice as far from
cleanup. I don't think that's acceptable.
And more problems are occurring. As the Chairman mentioned,
the additives to gasoline, I've been reading about it. Suddenly
that'll get a high profile, everybody will run in there, and--I
would like to charge my administration, not the Chairman's
administration, to work with us in the Congress. If you don't
like our anthracite bonds, make the Better America Bonds work,
but just don't say Better America Bonds, because I tell you
right now they won't work as they're presently constituted,
Brad. And I am going to tell you that whatever problem--I think
all my colleagues locally that represent Pennsylvania--this is
a strange State in terms--we have 2,500 municipalities, 67
counties and a total lack of planning probably in 90 percent of
our municipal governments, and I think, Robert, you know that.
That's Pennsylvania's problem. So we need somebody
comprehensively to--understanding what this concept is, to come
with the Federal Government and say, here's how we can help,
and here's some ideas on how it can be done; the State
government coming in and saying, here's what we can do and how
we can help administer and get this done; and then at the local
level and the communities themselves and the people. But if we
keep talking about how wonderfully we've done for the last 25
years, and we spend $10 million a year, and we're only going to
have to do that for the next 400 years, that doesn't give me an
awful lot of satisfaction or even--it doesn't impress me that
we've got people really thinking about this.
So I've worked with Cathy Karpan, and I've worked with you,
Brad, in your other capacity and look forward to your service
now in region three as the administrator. But we really have to
come within the next month or 2 or 3 months with a very
comprehensive program that everybody can live with, that we
believe that we can implement and get done, and then let the
Congress and let the Chairman take it on his shoulders and
carry it down the field and score that touchdown for us. Thank
you.
The Chairman. Tim.
Mr. Holden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Blanchard, just one quick question--and you might have
said it in your testimony--how much revenue was generated into
the trust fund, and then how much was appropriated in the last
budget cycle? Something like 390 million generated and only 310
appropriated?
Ms. Blanchard. We had 275 million coming in and the 196
million go out.
Mr. Holden. So about 80 million unspent.
The Chairman. Plus all the interest.
Mr. Holden. Thank you.
And then finally, Brad, I just want to associate myself
with remarks made by the Chairman and by Mr. Sherwood dealing
with the fly ash. I know the administrator knows clear well
where the Pennsylvania delegation stands on this issue, but it
really is disheartening when you think of this 100 years of
eyesores that we face. And then finally through the Purple
legislation we finally find a use and a way to get rid of these
culm banks, and then to have this proposal, whether it's real
or implied, about being classified as hazardous waste, it
really would be a giant step backward. And I know you've been
worked over twice already, but I wanted to land a third punch
and say that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Sherwood, do you have any other
questions?
Mr. Sherwood. No.
The Chairman. Mr. Kanjorski?
Mr. Kanjorski. I just want to thank the panel that came
today because I think we're finally trying to just get to the
issue, and I appreciate all of your effort. I don't want to
appear as though I am not genuinely pleased with the effort
you're making, but we need even a stronger effort.
The Chairman. Well, I want to thank the panel again. I can
say my goal is to try to solve this problem, and frankly my
conservation reinvestment act will do part of that. And I tell
my good colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle and I tell
my colleagues on this side of the aisle, right, wrong or
indifferent, when you read the papers, there's $2 trillion now
supposedly in surplus which may be predicted, but if we're
going to do things, we ought to do things by solving problems
and not creating some new, great, grandiose program.
That's one of my objections to President Clinton every day.
You read where he's going to spend so many millions of dollars
on a new program, and I commend him for having the imagination,
but I also condemn him for not addressing this problem. This
money has been collected. We ought to take the money out of the
Congress and we ought to spend it and solve the problem, which
would create tremendous wealth.
I mean, I am convinced of this. You have the power here,
you have the land mass here, you have the work force here, you
have a strong work ethic, and if you had the land space, you
clean this water up for New Jersey and Maryland and the rest of
it and also get this land cleaned up, that's what I would like
to see done, and we can do it jointly. I will try to do that. I
can't do it all by myself. This is going to take a lot of joint
effort. I think that Mr. Kanjorski said a good thing. I want
the administration to come down with some good ideas; not a new
idea on something else, but something that addresses this
problem. With that you're-- .
Mr. Dolence. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, may I?
The Chairman. Yes.
Mr. Dolence. I'd like to offer to Brad to share with him
our position that this--the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's
position on the ash. And there's an element that is missing in
the discussion so far, and that is if the ash is classified as
hazardous, it is not only going to be a burden to the cogens,
it will put them out of business. We will not have the benefit
from the ash. We will not have the culm being cleaned up, and
we won't have that green--I consider green electricity coming
from those cogens. Those cogens will shut down because they're
on a fixed-cost basis. And I wanted to emphasize that.
I think Mr. Kanjorski is right on the mark. A holistic
approach, that was the whole impetus behind our Growing Greener
initiative, and I can't agree more that we look at the big
picture. You don't just look at one project and another one.
We're looking at them watershed by watershed.
And as a final note on the market, remining in Pennsylvania
in 1998, we received 3,300 acres of reclamation free by the
coal industry. Government, the Federal EPA, OSM, Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania, we spent $26 million and reclaimed 2,000
acres. We need to maintain a market, especially in anthracite.
That is a unique product, and it is hurting. It does not have
the market that bituminous has. In anthracite--the surface
mining in anthracite is well over 90 percent remining, meaning
90 percent of the time when an operator goes out there and
mines, he or she is reclaiming old abandoned sites at no cost
to the taxpayer. You want to talk about holistic and being
smart on how we spend our dollars, if we put that industry out
of business, we lose it. It'll never come back. Thank you.
The Chairman. I appreciate that. As you know, my stand on
the mining has been very strong because those that are mining
are doing it right, and I don't think they should pay for the
sins of those who created it. I go back to World War II. That's
when all this damage really was done, not all of it, but some
of it and most of it, and we ought to recognize that.
With that, you're excused. Thank you very much. If you
would like to stay with us, you can. If you'd like to leave,
that's your prerogative.
We will have the panel III, Andy Skrip, Vice President of
the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce; David Donlin,
President, Economic Development Council of Northeastern
Pennsylvania, Executive Director, Schuylkill Chamber of
Commerce; and Bernard McGurl, Executive Director of Lackawanna
River Corridor Association.
And if you would, Mr. Sherwood, would you take the gavel
for me and run this for a moment.
Mr. Sherwood. [Presiding.] Certainly.
We are going to hear from Andy Skrip, the Vice President of
the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce, and no one will be
better able to tell us the problems that are associated with
economic development in conjunction with the scars of our
anthracite heritage. Andy.
STATEMENTS OF ANDY SKRIP, VICE PRESIDENT, SCRANTON CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE; DAVID A. DONLIN, PRESIDENT, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
COUNCIL OF NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
SCHUYLKILL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE; AND BERNARD McGURL, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, LACKAWANNA RIVER CORRIDOR ASSOCIATION
STATEMENT OF ANDY SKRIP
Mr. Skrip. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Committee on Resources. My name is Andy Skrip. I am the vice
president of the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce. I am
here today representing the Chamber and the Scranton Lackawanna
Industrial Building Company, SLIBCO, the industrial development
arm of the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Sherwood. If we're not quiet in the back, we can't run
the hearing.
Continue.
Mr. Skrip. I have been associated with the Chamber and
SLIBCO for 20 years and have been involved with economic
development for 25 years.
On behalf of the Chamber's board of directors and our
membership consisting of over 2,600 businesses in the greater
Scranton area, I am here to share with the committee members
mine land reclamation problems specific to northeastern
Pennsylvania.
By way of background, the Scranton Lackawanna Industrial
Building Company, SLIBCO, is a not-for-profit community
economic development company. Our mission is to create and
retain jobs by developing real estate and obtaining financing
for businesses.
SLIBCO was created out of necessity when the coal industry
bottomed out after World War II and post-war depression had set
in on northeastern Pennsylvania. Under the SLIBCO umbrella,
public and private sectors began pooling their resources to
attract businesses to the greater Scranton area. Since SLIBCO's
inception over 55 years ago, SLIBCO has been responsible for
the planning, financing and/or construction of over 287
projects, creating over 25,000 new jobs and adding
approximately $423 million to the economy.
SLIBCO currently owns six buildings totaling over 1.1
million square feet and leases them to J.C. Penney, Prudential,
Fleet Financial Services, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics
and Diversified Information Technologies. We also have
developed 10 office, technology and industrial parks in
Lackawanna County. SLIBCO is the largest developer of abandoned
mine lands in Lackawanna County and has direct experience in
the marketing and development of these lands.
As you are aware, the economic development in the United
States is fierce. Every state and community throughout the
Nation are fighting for new corporate expansions and
relocations, new jobs for their communities. The marketing of
lands within the mining measures as they currently exist will
always place northeastern Pennsylvania at a disadvantage of
attracting industry to the area when these sites are compared
to other sites without similar problems.
The result of being in this disadvantaged position are loss
of jobs for the community and the loss of millions of dollars
invested into the state through our payroll, services and
operating expenditures. Our experience in Lackawanna County has
borne out these observations. The Scranton labor market has
been one of persistent and substantial unemployment and
underdevelopment for decades.
The industrial sites available in the older industrial
areas of Lackawanna County situated over abandoned mines have
been available for decades, but have failed to attract new
investment. The successes in attracting high technology, office
and growth industries have occurred primarily at greenfield
sites outside of the mining measures. These include the
Northrop Grumman facility in Benton Township, Chrysalis
facility in Scott Township, Fleet Financial Services, Cigna,
Alliance Capital at the Glenmaura Corporate Center, Prudential
and J.C. Penney offices at the Office Park at Montage and Met
Life in Abington Executive Park.
The development of attractive business parks within
abandoned mine areas has many challenges. The cost, risk,
appearance, engineering challenges and time delays are all the
barriers that prevent the reuse of these properties for job-
producing locations.
Before a company would even consider sites over mined
areas, they would have to evaluate the risk. Up-front moneys
would have to be spent for subsurface geotechnical reports,
testing and drilling. Then ultimately, if chosen to proceed to
the next step, the premium cost to design and construct
remedial measures such as the removal of above-grade
structures, the filling of mine openings and voids, grading and
compaction of strip pits are all too often cost-prohibitive.
These additional tasks take time and money that the prospective
companies are not willing to make, especially if other
competing sites don't require the same outlay and time delay.
Another major environmental and liability concern
associated with these sites are the stripping pits and deep
topographic depressions. These geological features were
historically used as community dumping sites. Even today,
illegal dumpers use these areas as dump sites for all types of
waste.
Land located within the mining measures have poor soil
conditions and/or subsurface voids which presents a high risk
of subsidence problems or differential settlement.
One of the basic rules of risk management is avoidance.
Site selection teams and executives use engineering reports and
common sense that ultimately forces them to eliminate abandoned
mine lands because of the risk. Coal-scarred land with the
existence of culm banks, red ash piles, strip pits and the lack
of vegetation are contrary to the clean and sleek corporate
image of the 21st century corporate America. These lands not
only bear the additional cost and risk, but studies have shown
direct links between employee morale and productivity relative
to operating in such an unsightly environment.
Another key factor employers consider is the amount of time
necessary to get the operation up and running. Time issue all
boils down to identifying an area where the company's
performance contracts can be executed. This always requires a
fast-tracked project. The major component to a fast-track
project is the availability of land or buildings that already
have all the necessary permits and approvals to start
construction. In other words, the site must be ready to go.
Unfortunately, prospective companies know the impacts, cost,
the risk, time, aesthetics and image of developing over mining
measures and automatically eliminate these sites without any
consideration.
The failure to develop industrial land sufficiently
attractive to induce job-producing investment by growing,
technologically competitive industries will result in continued
economic stagnation, substandard income, underemployment and
the continued out-migration of our young minds, our children.
The existing abandoned mine land program as authorized
under Title IV of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation
Act of 1977, SMCRA, has served our region well. Under SMCRA,
the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the
Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation has abated many dangerous
conditions such as open mine shafts and dangerous high walls
and has regraded many of our blackfields.
Also under SMCRA, the Office of Surface Mining addresses
emergency AML problems. While SMCRA has addressed and continues
to address many health, safety and environmental problems in
northeastern Pennsylvania, there are two reasons why SMCRA
funding alone cannot address the reuse of abandoned mine lands
for industrial development.
One, under SMCRA, AML reclamation is prioritized with
health and safety problems ranking highest, environmental
problems ranking next, then followed by economic development.
Currently, SMCRA guidelines limit reclamation activities at
health, safety and environmental problem sites to regrading and
preclude the additional compaction and subsurface stabilization
required to prepare a site for industrial reuses.
Two, Pennsylvania has the largest inventory of abandoned
mine land problems in the country, and northeastern
Pennsylvania has its fair share, or unfair share, of the
Commonwealth's problem areas. Given the current AML fund
appropriation levels, it will be decades, if not centuries,
before AML moneys can be expended to economic development.
In summary, if we are to realize the productive reuses of
the thousands of acres of blackfield sites in northeastern
Pennsylvania, we need the financial resources to eliminate
these barriers and provide a level playing field for northeast
Pennsylvania in our effort to attract corporate expansion and
relocation.
Mr. Chairman and committee members, we need to augment
SMCRA with special legislation to provide additional grant
funding to stabilize, compact and revegetate mine-scarred lands
if we truly want to put these degraded and abandoned lands back
to productive use.
Thank you for your time, and I will be happy to assist your
Committee in the future.
The Chairman. [Presiding.] Thank you, Andy.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Skrip follows:]
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The Chairman. David.
STATEMENT OF DAVID A. DONLIN
Mr. Donlin. Thank you Congressman, Congressman Sherwood,
Congressman Holden. I am not an expert on anthracite mining,
nor am I an environmental expert, but all my life has been
spent here in the anthracite coal fields of northeastern
Pennsylvania, with the exception of service to my country in
the Air Force.
For nearly 10 years I have served as the paid executive of
the Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce, which is based in
Pottsville. I currently serve as the volunteer president of the
Economic Development Council of Northeastern Pennsylvania,
which serves seven of our counties. I have served in many
volunteer leadership positions in economic and community
development and in human services capacities in three of our
counties. Another current voluntary involvement is as a task
force cochair on economic development for Schuylkill County's
VISION, a citizen-based program that's developed a strategic
plan for the recreation of Schuylkill County. I share the
experience of many of my professional colleagues throughout the
region, that of working to recreate communities and
opportunities while having one arm tied behind our backs.
The visionary legislative proposal that you are considering
here in Scranton this afternoon represents the beginning of
what I believe is the third phase of our regional restoration
to the benefits of full American citizenship. After our region
and our ancestors fueled the industrial revolution in America,
we were left with the environmental devastation and the almost
total destruction of our regional economy. Both of these
experiences have been quantified and recorded for history.
I also happen to believe that the invisible devastation
that occurred to our collective human dignity still remains,
limiting our capacity to develop our region's infrastructure or
our collective human potential. We have been successful in
surviving 25 percent unemployment rates over decades by self-
investment in jobs with limited pay and benefits that
represented the post-World War II experience. Not only did we
end up at that time beginning to export some of our finest and
well-educated sons and daughters, because of the limited
opportunity of that era, we were also exporting the
environmental residuals of the devastating mining experience of
the previous hundred years. Unfortunately, this experience
continues today. However, positive experiences that we did
discover at that time were found in the excellent work ethic of
our neighbors.
Our second phase has been more successful in that our
excellent educational institutions working together with
community-based local, regional, State and Federal development
organizations have created a work force with greater skills and
that same strong work ethic. Wages and benefits have grown, and
unemployment has been reduced, but we still lag behind our
State and Nation in both employment and wage and benefit
programs, and we still lack the regional community and the
financial capacities to tackle large projects because of the
absence of developable land and the conditions of the land that
we have inherited.
This proposal, in my opinion, represents the great
opportunity that our region needs to once again participate as
equals in the American society. The restoration of our sacred
lands will reestablish our collective spirit and allow all of
us to work together to share in the great benefits of being
United States citizens.
Through the use of the opportunities represented in this
program, we can work through regional mechanisms, leverage
additional public and private investment using as examples the
American Heritage River Initiative, the Commonwealth's Keystone
Opportunity Zone Program and others to reclaim our land and to
move forward as a regional community. We could recreate the
region, and most importantly, in my opinion, to create that new
vision of northeastern Pennsylvania, a community that shares
the same opportunities, the same environmental qualities, the
same spirit that has made the United States a great country.
Through this new commitment to northeastern Pennsylvania,
we can continue our great work ethic and create new investment
opportunities that will make our region an attractive quality-
of-life experience. We will be able to recover many of our sons
and daughters who have migrated away from home to rejoin their
families, to offer an entirely new generational experience for
new citizens that will be moving to our communities, and stop
export of the acid mine water that pollutes all of the
northeastern Pennsylvania tributaries all the way to the
Chesapeake Bay.
The anthracite mining experience of past generations has
left us with our heritage, both good and bad. Currently, the
anthracite industry through favorable tax credit consideration
by the Congress back in the 1980's initiated a number of
cogeneration facilities that provide appropriate environmental
measures that have been absent in the past. Proposals for
conversion of coal energy to liquid fuel and carbon research
technology both represent new approaches to anthracite coal
recovery that also recognize and meet environmental standards
of the United States in the 21st Century. This proposal would
assist us in cleaning up our region, restoring its natural
beauty, while also recognizing new technologies that meet
environmental requirements.
Many regions of the United States have suffered through
environmental and economic devastation and with public
investment have recovered to become important cogs in the
United States economy. Here in northeastern Pennsylvania we
have shared our resources by fueling the industrial revolution
which built the United States. We have done everything within
our collective capacity to reach the American dream. The
opportunity represented in this proposal created by our
congressional delegation is the expressway to our future of
national equality as a region. It is our road to full
participation in the wonderful experience encompassed in being
United States citizens. We thank you for your interest and look
forward to a wonderful new partnership in recreating
northeastern Pennsylvania.
The Chairman. Thank you, David. And if you ever think about
going into a second career, you might think about writing.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Donlin follows:]
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The Chairman. Bernard.
STATEMENT OF BERNARD McGURL
Mr. McGurl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Bernard
McGurl. I am the executive director of the Lackawanna River
Corridor Association, a nonprofit community watershed
associated created in 1987 to promote the restoration of the
Lackawanna River. And I'd like to thank you, Mr. Chairman,
Congressman Sherwood, Congressman Holden, Congressman
Kanjorski, and your staff for conducting this hearing. I am
pleased to provide this testimony on the impacts that over 150
years of anthracite mining and related activities have had on
the Lackawanna River and its watershed.
It's appropriate that this hearing occurs in the winter
when the stark legacy of the anthracite industry is more
visible along our rivers and hillsides. We had an ample
opportunity to see that in our flight this morning. Issuing
from these seemingly static scars are a wide variety of active
and ongoing problems which continue to adversely affect the
environment and the economy of northeast Pennsylvania.
I believe it is useful to understand the scope of these
complex issues in a historical context. While the intent of the
Surface Mining Reclamation and Control Act of 1977 was to
promote the reclamation, the level of funding authorized in
subsequent years by Congress has been inadequate and has not
resulted in the type of holistic and comprehensive efforts that
many of us in the anthracite region believe are necessary to
restore the environmental and economic vitality of the region.
Again, in an historic context, I offer one exhibit, a map
prepared in 1904 by William Dodge, a mining engineer. This map,
this is a blueprint copy of it, shows the location of breakers
up and down the Lackawanna and Susquehanna watersheds. If you
can imagine, the rivers are like tree trunks, and the coal
mines are like the bad fruits on there that have been polluting
the water since mining first began. This study was commissioned
by the State's mining engineers in cooperation with some of the
mining companies in 1904. They knew they had a problem then. It
was studied and it's been studied for a hundred years, and it's
time to do something about it.
In addition to the direct flows of acid mine drainage from
flooded underground workings, our rivers are impacted by the
loss of freshwater flows in the tributary streams. The mining
that has occurred underneath these streams has resulted in the
water leaking out of the stream beds and percolating down into
the flooded mine voids. These result in added flows of surface
water to the interrupted ground water flows, with both of these
streams of water interacting with the pyritic materials in the
coal measures forming acidic solutions which reenter the rivers
through outflow tunnels or bore holes lower in the watersheds.
The dried-up tributary stream corridors are then subject to
dysfunctional morphology during storm events. These dry stream
beds are rapidly surcharged with urban storm water flows and
carry large quantities of coal waste sediments into the rivers.
The surface features of abandoned mine lands are a major
source of these sediments. Culm dumps, those large black
mountains which are such an evident feature of the man-made
topography, are piles of sorted coal and rock waste, a residual
of the coal preparation process. Culm has a marginal fuel
value. It varies from 60 to 100 percent rock, but there are
large amounts of coal embedded in the rock material. These
piles are expensive to remove or regrade on their own. The
material is generally not adequate to support the construction
of buildings. This material has obviously, with the
cogeneration industry, a fuel value and an economic value.
There are many culm dumps actually located adjacent to or
actually on the Lackawanna floodplain and in several cases, in
the riverbed itself. We have a dump up in Jessup at the mouth
of the GrassyIsland Creek where a 20,000 cubic yard mass of
material was washed into the creek and down into the river
during the floods in 1996.
Other notable features are some of the red ash piles we saw
today. These are culm dumps where the residual coal is burned.
In some cases these fires have continued over a 50- to 75-year
period. These ash piles are again used for aggregate purposes.
They have the potential of supporting some types of buildings.
Other piles that we saw today were the rock piles and the
overburden piles that are other features of the stripping
activities. The stripping pits and overburden piles themselves
are remnants of open-pit surface mining, and it's common on the
flanks of the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley as the coal
outcrops toward the ridge tops. Many of these mining sites were
created in response to peak market demands during the First and
Second World War when there were no requirements for
reclamation, and the expedition of the war effort meant to get
the coal out and worry about the damages later.
Strip mining along the outcrops was common from 1900
through the 1960's. In fact, several strip mining activities
continue in the northern anthracite field, although it is
diminishing as the years go by. There are greater amounts of
strip mining and remining activities in the southern and middle
field.
The use of culm material as a fuel source for auxiliary
fuel in fluidized bed electric cogeneration plants is another
factor affecting mine reclamation issues as well as the
economics of site reclamation. The recent action by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency proposing to classify culm
material combustion ash as a hazardous waste may unfortunately
and unwisely, I believe, remove the market asset of culm
material as a fuel and make the reclamation of culm sites and
associated mine sites more expensive and problematic. Culm ash
has a variety of uses in reclamation work both geotechnically
and agronomically. The loss of this product will be detrimental
to the reclamation in the anthracite region.
A major consideration affecting the economic reuse of
anthracite mine sites is surface integrity and subsurface
stability. Due to the nature of historic underground mining
practices and surface alterations, the geotechnical
considerations creating a buildable mine reclamationsite are
complex. The presence and condition of underground workings,
their depth below the surface, the condition and nature of the
intervening rock strata and the situation of subsurface
hydrology are all factors which must be considered by anyone
wishing to build in the anthracite fields. The situations at
sites within reclaimed strip mine pits have the additional
concern of proper compaction when new building construction
will occur.
These conditions and situations that I have just discussed
are only the physical challenges we face. I believe that
Congress must give new tools, resources and capabilities to
conduct more effective, multiobjective reclamation activities.
We need not only reclaim the land and water resources, but to
use the process and product to advance the economic stability
of our communities to compete in the global market of the 21st
century.
The Chairman. How much more do you have?
Mr. McGurl. Just one more page.
I just refer briefly to some observations. I believe we
need new tools to get reclamation work underway. I believe the
current implementation strategy is not going to be effective
even with new funding through existing OSM or EPA programs. I
believe that we need a regional program that has a strong
county and watershed-based source of local decisionmaking. I
believe that the county/watershed reclamation should be a
partnership effort; it should be consensus-based, and we should
have implementation agencies on a local level. The involvement
of State and Federal agencies with this process is vital. I
believe that restoration programs need to have multiobjective
outcomes. Environmental restoration needs to address land and
water recovery. Site reuse needs to make both economic and
environmental sense and have broad economic and community
benefit. Projects need to be integrated into community plans
and act as an alternative to sprawl. Each project process and
product needs to have an ongoing goal of stewardship and
sustainability.
In summary, I would also note that the reclamation of
abandoned mine sites offers this region and the Nation an
opportunity to reutilize these valuable industrial resources.
Many of the sites are adjacent to existing road and rail
infracture. By focusing new industrial, commercial and
institution uses of these abandoned mine sites, we will provide
our communities with focused growth and further protect our
agricultural, timberlands, watershed areas and natural habitat
from unwise urban sprawl and speculative development. Our
reclamation of abandoned mine lands can help us restore the
natural functions to our rivers and watersheds, enhancing
downstream waters such as the Chesapeake and Delaware
estuaries.
And last I suggest that we understand that water is a
carrier of messages. It tells everyone downstream how well we
understand and value our environment. Progressive action by
Congress can provide us with the capacity to enhance the
environmental value of the messages that flow downstream clean
and clear from our anthracite headwaters to our great east
coast estuaries. These are messages that can enhance the lives
of millions of our fellow citizens. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Bernard.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McGurl follows:]
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The Chairman. Mr. Dolence and Skrip, both of you, David,
you're in the private sector, right?
Mr. Skrip. Right.
Mr. Donlin. Private, nonprofit.
The Chairman. I am just curious. Do you think--and I
happen--Congressman Kanjorski's reclamation bonds in the
private sector, do you think that that can be sold? Would
people be interested in those type of bonds? I don't mean to
put you on the spot, but--.
Mr. Donlin. Congressman, I think they would, first of all,
with the Congressman's sales capacity, but more specifically
corporate America's interested in good investment, and they're
interested in helping us as communities progress, so I believe
that it's a saleable commodity.
The Chairman. I am going to make a suggestion. I can do it,
but I think you ought to do it. You ought to invite the
Secretary of Treasury up here and maybe Bill Archer of Ways and
Means to try to educate them, because I think you're right.
There are people looking to invest money, and it's something--I
am not questioning you--I just--the private sector and not the
Government-- .
Mr. Kanjorski. And if I may just respond just for the
record, Mr. Chairman, this didn't come out of a vacuum.
Actually, while H.R. 10 was pending, the banking bill, the
insurance industry came to me, and they asked whether or not
they would be subjected to CRAs, and I assured them not with
this bill. But not too far in the future the banks are going to
come in and say, we want an even playing field, so we want to
be excluded from CRAs, or we want the insurance companies
included. I think that's where the trend is going to be. So I
said to them, you know, if they wanted the support of people
like myself--and I have not been a proponent of CRAs in the
past--I said, why don't you do something prophylactically. So
the insurance companies went back and they came to me and they
said, we would like to participate in environmental and
economic development bonds and that they buy in their portfolio
about $20 billion of these bonds, and they said that they felt
they could probably cover that type of expenditure very
readily.
So we've been working very closely with some investment
banking houses and Wall Street, some outstanding legal firms to
write these bonds, and I think they've given us assurance of
about--the sale of the bond would be about 99.5 of face value,
and they're ready market. As a matter of fact, I did talk to
major CEOs on the President's plane, and they said they felt
for their two companies alone they'd pick up 4- to $6 billion.
The Chairman. I think it's a great idea, but you're going
to have to get it through Congress. That's going to be our
biggest problem. There has to be an interest that's evident, or
otherwise they're going to--go ahead, David.
Mr. Donlin. Congressman, we've had a conversation with
Congressman Kanjorski from the Economic Development Council
prospective--two conversations--with the intent of going to
Congressman Sherwood and Congressman Holden and Congressman
Gekas to establish what we've referred to as a congressional
summit. They have the capacity to bring the government
resources to us. We have the capacity to recruit the private
sector, to sit down and start some real serious dialog.
The Chairman. We have to change the laws before this can
happen, and it's going to take some effort in the private
sector to let Congressmen know that this is a good idea, and
that means the administration, too. They have to get on board,
and I am sure you've been talking to them about this.
Mr. McGurl, I am sure you're aware I am a plaintiff against
the Clinton administration on the heritage rivers. I want clean
water, and I want you to have it, and I want it, and I want my
rivers clean. I just don't like the administration taking the
congressional prerogative by executive order. And this
administration has been very guilty of doing this in many, many
different areas. And I believe in this government very
strongly.
America better wake up. We don't want a king, regardless of
what administration. We don't want the use of executive order.
This is a congressional obligation because under the proposal
now, you may have the money today, but it can be taken away
from you tomorrow. That is the role of the Congress, and it
should act appropriately, and very frankly, right now I could
not pass a heritage river. I think the administration is wrong,
but other than that, I think you make some great points.
By the way, are you supporting the Carroll legislation?
Mr. McGurl. Yes. I am.
The Chairman. Your recognition goes a lot higher.
Mr. McGurl. I am glad you brought that up. I was looking
for an opportunity to encourage the process through the
appropriations committee.
The Chairman. You made some very good comments in your
presentation and most of them I support. I think all of you
have made good comments. Mr. Sherwood.
Mr. Sherwood. Dave, Andy gave some very definite thoughts
about bringing industry in and they had reasons not to come
because of the anthracite scarring and your testimony was a
little more esoteric and I didn't hear that from you. But have
you had that same experience?
Mr. Donlin. Congressman, as Andy was testifying--and I was
not privy to his testimony--it was recreating our actual
experience in Schuylkill County, absolutely, the same
experience.
Mr. Skrip. If I can add to that, Congressman Kanjorski
mentioned about selling these bonds to insurance companies. And
in Lackawanna County there's a total of five insurance
companies that came into the area that we have contact with,
Prudential, Met Life, Cigna, Kemper, AIG. Not one of these
companies are in a brown field site. They all went for
greenfield sites because of the risk involved and that's a
pretty good example and we do have contact with these insurance
companies.
The Chairman. All of you mentioned it and it was mentioned
on the flight today about compacting when we do reclamation
work. Should we change that where they have to compact because
it takes 35 to 40 years now--.
Mr. Skrip. You're absolutely right. The sites that you saw
today, the greenfield sites that are now reclaimed, they were
big holes and the material was just dumped in the holes. They
were not compacted. A company just can't locate on that
particular site. It has to be compacted. Or for this building
here, as an example, there's probably more than a half dozen
veins of coal underneath this building and I would bet there
was either caissons, pylons or concrete foundations underneath
the foundation itself just to support the building. So again we
need more than just grading off the site. We need proper
compaction of these sites to buildupon.
The Chairman. What about the areas of deep shaft mine? Most
of what we've seen today, other than when we went to Don's
area, was strip mining or open surface mining. The shaft
themselves, if we reclaim the land on top is there enough
weight to support--do you have to compact it if there's a shaft
underneath there or does that have to be dropped?
Mr. Skrip. The problem is we only see part of the problem
when you fly over the area. The biggest problem is what you
don't see. And for the most part the mining engineers had very
good mapping of where the shafts were and at times you have to
fill them in, flush them, whatever it might take. So again,
it's all risky business for a company to--.
The Chairman. Part of this reclamation that we're talking
about--that I heard 15 billion, 4.5 billion, all of the
billions of dollars, does that include imploding those shafts
to make it stable?
Mr. Skrip. Or filling them in, yes.
The Chairman. Wouldn't imploding make it a lot easier?
Mr. Kanjorski. You really can't do it. You'd be fracturing
everything above it. Plus, the fly ash and with the culm banks,
pulverizing and flushing and filling the mines and they're
getting up to 1 or 2 or 3,000 pounds per square inch so that
it's a tremendous support system.
The Chairman. Within the shaft itself.
Mr. Kanjorski. Right.
The Chairman. We could require the surface mining group,
when they do reclaim or with this organization, the area around
the municipality should be compacted or it has no value.
Mr. Kanjorski. Right.
The Chairman. You wouldn't have to do it at all.
Mr. Kanjorski. No. Right. That's why the comprehensive plan
is necessary.
The Chairman. OK. Don.
Mr. Sherwood. We talked about that on the way over. We'd
have to have some rules. If it's out in the middle of a
mountain somewhere you wouldn't have to spend all the money to
compact it like you're building a highway but if it's liable to
be used for industrial purposes, when it's being done it's
gotta be compacted then. And the people that come in are very
worried about the engineering costs that they'd have to go
through to put a building up here because of the underground
mining and the voids and so that's something that has to all be
worked out with this.
The Chairman. Before I go to Tim, my building--the state
has no liability for those that voluntarily clean up something.
These reclamation areas which we're talking about, if we were
to clean them up, wouldn't it be advisable to put in non-
liability for someone that goes in and uses it? What I am
saying--let's say if someone finally decides there's something
toxic on the site after--if I am Procter and Gamble, I
shouldn't be liable. I mean somewhere along the line there
should be some way to make sure that they won't--make it
attractive that they use the property.
Mr. Skrip. There is state law in place to cover that. And
for the most part the mine scarred lands that we have, the
black fields, if you will, or the gray fields are not
contaminated. They're just scarred.
The Chairman. The areas have been burned were
contaminated--.
Mr. Skrip. Stripped or scarred--.
The Chairman. But they're not contaminated.
Mr. Kanjorski. They're not contaminated. Our problem is
filling, backfilling properly and supporting--underlying
support. But you can't really get to it project by project.
The Chairman. I'll right. Congressman.
Mr. Holden. Dave, I guess of all the counties in the
anthracite field, I believe I am right that Schuylkill is
probably the most active in current mining operations. How many
miners do we have employed in Schuylkill County now?
Mr. Donlin. We have about 900 now of which 300 are in the
cogeneration field from about 600 and that's from a peak of
140,000 in about 1930.
Mr. Kanjorski. You've got two-thirds of the active mining.
Mr. Donlin. Right.
Mr. Holden. Two-thirds. OK. So we certainly wouldn't want
to do anything to disturb or harm that in any legislative
proposal. But going back to Paul's concept or his idea here, in
Schuylkill, the information I received is there's about 17,000
acres of unclaimed coal lands. Do you think most of that would
be privately owned or publicly owned? Do the commissioners have
control over most of it or--.
Mr. Donlin. Of unclaimed?
Mr. Holden. Yes.
Mr. Donlin. I believe most of that probably went into tax
default and it's controlled by the county.
Mr. Sherwood. You mean unreclaimed, don't you? I mean you
say unclaimed--.
Mr. Donlin. Right.
Mr. Holden. It's not reclaimed. Right. Do you think the
commissioner has any control over it? I know you don't know for
sure.
Mr. Donlin. I would say the vast majority would be held by
the county commissioners.
Mr. Holden. OK. But also now I guess we have continuous
mine operations that were in existence predating the 1970's
laws that would have a great deal of acreage that they are not
responsible to reclaim. So if Paul's idea would move forward,
we would have to have some way of eminent domaining that land
so we could clean that up also.
Mr. Kanjorski. Well, that's been one of the problems.
Without the ability to get all of the lands as part of the
project, you can't clean up 500 acres and then have 500 acres
next to it that remains deteriorated. So there are ways of--but
by doing it comprehensively the theory is you could deal with
the owners, you could deal with the prospective re-users at
some point to get the job done and you may have the capacity
but under the authority's act of Pennsylvania you'd have the
power of eminent domaining it.
But I've talked to major holdings and I think that with
little difficulty we could probably acquire 90,000 acres that
they understand or--they really like to be excused from further
liability and that would be part of the key to recovery, that
they'd have no future liability. I think we'd end up getting a
good portion of Girardville, a lot of the older coal companies
down there--there are two coal companies around the Hazleton
area that have 25,000 acres and I think you have a large one up
here of about 10 or 15,000 acres. The fact of the matter is I
don't think that's much of a problem as long as we have one
entity that's dealing with it on a consistent basis so we don't
have every municipality being called upon to do their own
arrangement or deal.
The Chairman. A bit of advice is that any legislation that
we work on, let's not put the accommodation procedure. Let's
leave it up to the state because you're going to raise all
kinds of--.
Mr. Kanjorski. Absolutely.
The Chairman. Just leave it up to the state or the
municipalities, whatever you prefer. Mr. Holden, do you have
any other questions? I'd like to thank you for testifying and I
appreciate your time. You will have clean rivers and I'll
guarantee it. They will be clean.
Mr. Kanjorski. In less than 400 years.
The Chairman. As long as I am mature enough to catch a
trout.
Mr. Holden. We've got great trout fishing in the
Lackawanna.
Mr. Sherwood. But the interesting thing to me was we had
two men here who have spent their careers in economic
development and one who has spent his career in environmental
concerns and they by and large--they told us the same thing and
that's very important.
The Chairman. Thank you, Gentlemen. Appreciate it very
much.
The next panel is Kenneth M. Klemow, Ph.D., Certified
Senior Ecologist and Botanist Professor of Biology, Wilkes
University; Mr. Alex E. Rogers, the Upper Susquehanna
Lackawanna Watershed American Heritage Rivers Initiative, the
Pennsylvania GIS Consortium; Mr. Robert Hughes, Eastern
Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, EPCAMR.
Gentlemen, please.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH M. KLEMOW, Ph.D., CERTIFIED SENIOR
ECOLOGIST AND BOTANIST, PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY, WILKES UNIVERSITY
Mr. Klemow. My name is Kenneth Klemow, and I am on faculty
of Wilkes University. I am an ecologist and a botanist and I
teach courses in those areas.
I do want to thank the House Resources Committee for giving
me the opportunity to say a few words about the ecological
effects of mining, which actually could be a rather complicated
topic. I want to try to summarize the high points from the ten
page essay that I put together and that's in your packet. I do
want to apologize for getting the date wrong on the original
draft of the essay. Some of us are still operating, in the past
millenium. Regardless, I do refer you to the more complete
comments there.
Ecologically, mining has left a profound environmental
impact on Northeastern Pennsylvania and in fact one of the
reasons why I chose to be an ecologist, being a native of
Hazleton, is I wanted to help solve some of these problems.
Therefore I especially apppreciate the opportunity to testify
at this hearing.
To be fair to the mine operators, most of the mining-
related damage that we have occurred before laws protecting the
environment were enacted and before the value of natural
ecosystems was recognized. Often you hear ecologists railing
against mine operators, but the rules were different then. Much
of the mining occurred as we were fighting wars, so
environmental concerns took a lower priority.
As I note in my essay, the impacts of mining has affected
both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems covering 100,000 to,
120,000 acres, In general the ecological impacts of mining have
been to reduce biological diversity and a number of very
important ecological functions and values like ecological
productivity, water purification, erosion control and
sustainability. These are all very important functions that we
now no longer have in mine damaged areas. Most of the damage to
terrestrial systems--and again I'd like to contrast between
terrestrial versus aquatic--has been by the deposition of a
stony infertile substrate. That substrate has high
concentrations of toxic minerals like iron and aluminum. It
also has high acidity, is very poor in holding onto water and
during warm summer days, it feels like you're walking on a hot
asphalt parking lot. Temperatures can exceed 150 degrees and so
imagine if you were a little tiny plant trying to grow in that
thing and it's real, real hard. And so because of these
stressful conditions, plants have a very difficult time
revegetating mine sites. Generally when you go out to these
sites you see a very scrubby community composed of low-value
species like gray birch, trembling aspen, blackberry and
spotted knapweed.
Likewise, animal species are also very relatively sparse in
mine-impacted sites because there's just not enough water and
food is limited. And as you have heard before, culm banks also
create water pollution because they allow rain water to
infiltrate thereby getting into the acid bearing rocks.
Mining has also impacted aquatic communities in the form of
lakes, creeks, and wetlands and these again are viewed as being
critical habitats. I am sure being from Alaska you would be
appreciative of that.
Large scale earth moving and deposition of mine land
obliterated all these aquatic habitats. And in fact, in many
cases--I know that Bernie mentioned this on the last panel--but
we have a situation where creeks that drain, mountains, lose
flow as they hit the mine lands. The clean water is forced
underground and it becomes polluted which is a real big
problem.
Another way of looking at the problem is that we have a
disconnect between the headwater areas and the lower regions of
the watershed, based on recent studies we have done, we have
seen that in headwater areas, populations of stream-dwelling
species are reduced because of that and that's a problem.
Again, we all talked about acid mine drainage and the problems
that it causes. In fact, it's interesting because I am doing a
watershed assessment with the USGS streams that are impacted by
acid mine drainage are essentially dead with respect to macro
in vertebrates--the little bugs that fish use as food.
Well, how do we fix the problem? As far as terrestrial
systems go, we can regrade the site, add fertilizer, we can add
seeds of grasses and legumes. This leads to a meadow like
condition. While I think that's better than a culm bank, I have
misgivings about the current methods of reclamation and
specifically methods that basically create a meadow. Eastern
Pennsylvania is part of the eastern decidous forest, and thus
woodland is a more natural ecosystem type. If we do decide to
do reclamation for green space, we can't create meadows we must
adopt a more smart reclamation technique that I'd be happy to
talk about in more detail.
In terms of addressing aquatic situations, there are many
things we can do that actually act to work together but we
really must adopt an ecological stream restoration approach.
Using that approach converts degrading watercourse into natural
watercourses. This is being done quite a bit out in the western
part of the Country. However not much ecological stream
restoration is being done here in the eastern part. I think
there's a tremendous potential to do ecological stream
restoration in the anthracite fields.
And, again, we talked about treating acid mine drainage by
use of constructive wetlands. I've been involved in a couple of
projects like that with the earth conservancy. Our second
project that I'd be happy to show you, is a wetland that is 97
percent effective in removing 300 pounds of iron per day. That
mine drainage treatment project is in Hanover Township in
Luzerne County.
To me it's unfortunate that here we are in the Year 2000
and we're still talking about fixing the environmental impact
of mining and to implement good reclamation techniques. I think
that considerable resources need to be put into this effort.
Also, as Congressman Kanjorski mentioned, we do have to
look at the big picture. We can't just simply go on a project-
by-project basis. By looking at the big picture, we can
actually get rid of the causes and that will allow us to
prevent pollution, therefore we don't have to treat as much if
we can get to the causes. You've been mentioning that it would
take, what, about 400 years to wait for the abandoned mine land
fund to reclaim the area. Well, I can tell you that nature can
clean it up on its own given 400 to 500 years. I think if you
condemn this region to the current level of devastation for
centuries, that would be very bad public policy. I think we
have the know-how, we have the will, we just need the
resources. We can and must do better to do reclamation. And I
think, again, that we need to have a collaboration of agency
officials, the private sector and local scientists who are
interested. I think that once we get everybody working
together, we will be able to solve the problem here. So I thank
you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you, Doctor, very much. Alex.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Klemow follows:]
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STATEMENT OF ALEX E. ROGERS, THE UPPER SUSQUEHANNA-LACKAWANNA
WATERSHED AMERICAN HERITAGE RIVERS INITIATIVE, AND THE
PENNSYLVANIA GIS CONSORTIUM
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Chairman, good afternoon and thankyou to
all the Members here for including me in this group of
witnesses. I am here today on behalf of the local American
Heritage Rivers Initiative steering committee, and the
Pennsylvania GIS Consortium, which is a nonprofit organization
jointly administered by two colleges in this area and that is
working on issues that Ken talked about with respect to the big
picture. I want to tell you a little bit about the big picture
that we're working on.
I understand the American Heritage Rivers Initiative has
some controversy associated with it with respect to the
authorization or initiation of the project but I want to tell
you, Mr. Chairman, and other Members of the Committee, that the
program has had a tremendously valuable effect here locally in
this region. What it has done is brought together communities
and environmental groups.
Congressman Sherwood you mentioned this, the chamber of
commerce sits at the same table now with environmental groups
and also at that table are county leaders up here in Lackawanna
County, county leaders in Luzerne and then down to Congressman
Holden's district. What this program has done on the local
level is bring people together to talk about a common challenge
that--no words could say it more eloquently than the tour you
took today that those black mountains of coal waste that you
saw--they're not only the unfortunate tombstones of the
anthracite mining industry that largely doesn't exist, but they
are truly the barriers that stand between today's environmental
and economic problems here in the region and I think tomorrow's
healthier and more robust Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Who have you heard from today? You've heard from local
residents who live adjacent to these piles. You saw this
morning how closely those abandoned mine sites are to
communities. It is strangling these communities. They cannot
grow. It is isolating them and it has, I think, as Congressman
Kanjorski said, a tremendous effect on the psychology of the
area.
Who else have you heard from? You've heard from business
groups that have told you that they lose prospective companies
who look at the area and turn away as fast as they got here and
you heard from the Federal and state administrators of
programs. It is a sad state that 23 years into this Federal
program the OSM, as they testified today, has cleaned up less
than one-tenth of the problems.
What's the effect on the local economy? I want to talk
about several things. First, we have a dwindling supply of
flatland and clean water. As an earlier witness said, if we
don't clean these abandoned mine sites and get them compacted
so that businesses can locate there, we're going to destroy the
few pristine sites that still exist.
What else? Population loss, I think Congressman Kanjorski
talked about this. This area--this region----is virtually
leading the Nation in population decline. From 1990 to 1998,
this metropolitan statistical area lost more than 23,000
people. That's a 3.6 percent decline. Of all of the MSA's
nationwide, this one experienced the third largest population
decline and that's on top of population decline that existed
years before. Our local groups have tracked it. Between 1930
and 1970, our population reduction was 30 percent and then
between 1970 and 1980, we lost more.
What else? We have higher unemployment levels. To be sure,
we have made significant progress in bringing unemployment
levels down but we have been consistently above the national
and state average and I think one of the reasons for that is
what you saw today.
So what can we do to mend this region's land and water? I
talked about the regional cooperation. We are starting with an
environmental master plan and I brought for you today just a
quick poster that will provide a snapshop of some of the things
we're doing. Congressman Kanjorski has been the leader in
bringing together groups in the area to provide a master plan,
a GIS environmental master plan, of the entire anthracite
region. Thanks to his leadership, we have scientists like Ken
and others, through this Pennsylvania GIS Consortium that I've
talked about, who are studying all of the topography, the
hydrology, the population concentration of the entire region.
What that means is if this Committee and this Congress are
successful in freeing money for this region, we're going to
know how to spend it in the most cost-effective and sensible
way.
People have made reference to the Chesapeake Bay. I just
want to draw your attention to the right side of this poster.
You can see clearly that the anthracite region in green flows
right into the Susquehanna and then right down into the
Chesapeake Bay. Today, as with every day in Northeastern
Pennsylvania, 200 million gallons of acid mine drainage will
flow from this region's mountains and strip-mine holes into the
Susquehanna River. And today, as with every day in this region,
this drainage will contain 740 tons of sulfate and 51 tons of
iron and that's why today, as with every day, our region is the
single largest industrial, polluter of the Chesapeake Bay.
But we're going to have this GIS environmental study done
very quickly so that we don't have just another fancy study to
sit on a shelf, but we have a blueprint for how best to invest
the Federal money that we hope or the private sector money that
we hope is freed up for this area. And we will know, instead of
the patchwork problems that we've been able to address today,
how doing work in one area will effect the entire region. We
will develop priorities and we will have the most sophisticated
technology available to make informed decisions about investing
this money. So I appreciate your attention to this problem and
thank you for the invitation to appear.
The Chairman. Thank you, Alex. Robert.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rogers follows:]
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STATEMENT OF ROBERT HUGHES, EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA COALITION FOR
ABANDONED MINE RECLAMATION
Mr. Hughes. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. My
name is Robert Hughes, a native of the Wilkes-Barre area
located in the northern anthracite coal fields just south of
Scranton here and a resident of the Borough of St. Clair down
in Schuylkill County, which is located in the heart of the
southern anthracite coal fields. I am here today as the
regional coordinator representing the Eastern Pennsylvania
Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation.
First of all, I'd like to thank you for giving EPCAMR this
opportunity to address you this afternoon on the familiarizing
Members of the Committee with mine land reclamation problems
specific to Northeastern Pa.
As for background on the Coalition, we are a regional
nonprofit organization made up of representatives of the
conservation districts from 9 out of 16 eastern Pennsylvania
coal counties affected by the AMD and abandoned mine lands
directly, the anthracite industry, over 20 local watershed
organizations with well over a thousand volunteers attached to
those organizations made up of sportsmen groups, conservation
clubs, conservancies, and representatives from the general
public. Our Coalition was formed in 1996 to identify how the
county conservation districts and their local cooperating
organizations could promote and contribute to local, state and
Federal mine reclamation efforts. Our mission is to encourage
the reclamation and redevelopment of those abandoned mine lands
and remediation of waters affected by past mining practices in
Eastern Pennsylvania.
An increasingly important role of our Coalition has been to
serve as a liaison between the local watershed organizations,
private businesses, economic development interests, the mining
industry, DEP, Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation, the
Federal agencies and other groups involved in abandoned mine
reclamation. We are also actively involved in raising the
awareness of the general public, our schools and our elected
officials on a local, state, Federal and national level
regarding these issues related to abandoned mine lands.
It's my job to provide technical assistance to support the
conservation districts and these watershed groups through
assisting in grant writing, establishing public education and
outreach programs, and rejuvenating local watershed groups. I
am proud to say there are more local watershed organizations
active in abandoned mine drainage remediation efforts in
Pennsylvania than there are in any other state in the Nation.
Well over 50 groups in Pennsylvania make up this contingency. I
work side by side with these groups in Eastern Pennsylvania to
inform and educate the public on AMD and AML issues and
technical interests relative to the specific reclamation and
remediation techniques being proposed for sites and discharges
in their local watersheds.
First, as a member of the National Coalition for Abandoned
Mine Reclamation, I know that our Coalition would like to see
the Rural Abandoned Mine Program (RAMP), which in the past has
been financed by the AML fund and administered by the USDA-
Natural Resources and Conservation Service, be supported once
again. The RAMP has not been funded since 1996. This program
worked through local communities, community volunteers,
conservation districts and other agencies, to solve and address
many AML problems. The NRCS provided most of the technical
assistance, natural resource planning, design and construction
of many of the earlier AMD and AML projects. Today in Eastern
Pennsylvania there are few staff available who have the time or
financial resources under other Federal programs that they are
administering to fully support and commit their time to
abandoned mine reclamation efforts in Eastern Pennsylvania.
Watershed organizations, county conservation districts and
reclamation related groups will tell you that the one area that
truly we need assistance in is the design and construction of
some of these passive treatment systems to abate abandoned mine
drainage. NRCS used to--under RAMP, used to fulfill that need
very efficiently.
Our Coalition would like to continue to establish an open
line of communication with the Office of Surface Mining, DEP,
Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation, Bureau of Mineral
Resources, Pennsylvania Mining Reclamation Advisory Board,
economic development interests, the chamber of commerces, the
IDAs and the EPA in the near future to discuss the flexibility
on certain regulations especially when the laws deal with
redevelopment of abandoned mine lands. EPCAMR is very
interested in playing a role in conducting outreach meetings
and coordination efforts, if there is enough interest to
develop regional task forces similar to the Luzerne-Lackawanna
Counties Brown Fields/Black Fields Task Force, to address some
of these obstacles to the regulations.
The mining industry of the past needs to be looked at in
the future as potential brown field-like redevelopment areas we
call black fields or gray fields today. Many of these sites
have great potential for redevelopment due to their proximity
of existing infrastructure, potential boost to the local
economy, elimination of public health and safety features,
clean up of ground water and surface water contamination, and
alleviation of the pressure on businesses that build on
previously undeveloped non-urban area green fields, pristine
forestlands and farmlands. Yet very little Federal moneys have
been released or granted to inventory and assess these areas
under the AML program. Not much Federal funding has come to the
anthracite region under the EPA's as well as under such
programs such as the Brown fields Economic Redevelopment
Initiative either.
There are thousands of acres that surround numerous
communities in the anthracite coal region that remain today as
unproductive as they did more than a hundred years ago. We
should concentrate our efforts on having our communities be
able to have the access to these undeveloped acres for social,
economic and as well as environmental uses. Expanding and
reconnecting our communities separated by mountains of culm,
creation of open space areas, wildlife habitat enhancement,
water quality improvements, recreational opportunities and
economic development interests of these abandoned mine lands
should be of the utmost importance.
Mine reclamation restores communities and enables them to
rebuild their economic base to attract more sustainable
businesses and jobs. Who wants to locate a business in a place
that looks like the surface of the moon, has orange-tainted
streams and poor water quality within its community, a poor
local economy and an unhealthy population. We should be at
least asking Congress to demand that the SMCRA Promise be kept.
Our communities have lived--and learned the hard way long
enough. Thousands of people in Pennsylvania support watershed
and reclamation activities through their contributions of time,
effort, donations and through volunteering. The people of
Pennsylvania understand that without clean water, the social,
recreation, economic and environmental vitality of the
anthracite region will be severely disadvantaged for our future
generations.
With regard to your second question as to how the coalition
describes the successes and failure of reclamation efforts of
abandoned mine lands as well as present new solutions to
improve past practices, first and foremost local community
support for reclamation and remediation projects needs to be in
place for a successful project to occur. Tapping local
government municipalities, township supervisors, contracting
and construction companies for volunteer services such as the
use of a front-end loader, a bulldozer, dump truck for hauling
stone, pipe, even landfill liner are all crucial to the success
of locally driven environmental restoration projects. Local
involvement often expands what at first might be a narrowly
focused project to a more comprehensive watershed effort as
additional people and financial resources are brought to the
table. These additional resources often assure that the efforts
will continue long after the completion of an initial project.
Federal programs need to be matched with the state grant
dollars to continually support the efforts of such groups. You
cannot ask for a better return on your investment when sweat
equity, as I like to call it, of the local volunteers committed
to cleaning up abandoned mine land impacts in their watershed
is involved.
There is still hope for the anthracite region. The key to
the Coalition's success has been our ability to involve local
groups in the up-front process of developing watershed
restoration plans, identifying problems, assessing the impacts,
coming up with feasible solutions and drawing on the strengths
of each of our partners. Each group has an active role in the
decisionmaking process. However, we are at a point where action
must be taken to continue the work of abandoned mine land
reclamation and AMD remediation and restoration of our streams
in Pennsylvania or our local efforts may be stifled and fall by
the way side.
The Chairman. Robert, how much more do you have?
Mr. Hughes. Just a sentence.
The Chairman. OK.
Mr. Hughes. More Federal funding to Northeastern
Pennsylvania will assure that local watershed restoration
efforts can continue complimenting the reclamation work that is
completed by our state Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation on
a comprehensive watershed basis. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hughes follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you. Just out of curiosity, have you
two sat in the same meetings together?
Mr. Rogers. Oh, yes.
The Chairman. So you are working together.
Mr. Rogers. Oh, you bet. As I said--.
The Chairman. You're not a separate effort.
Mr. Hughes. I am a member of the American Heritage River
Steering committee as well.
The Chairman. If we're going to do this we have to do it
all together and make sure that we work together to work on it.
Doctor, you're aware that the OSM is actively working now on
reforestation.
Mr. Klemow. That's one of their strategies but when you
look at much of the reclamation that's done around here--and
actually I think more reclamation is done more by the state, if
I am not mistaken, than by OSM--their goal is to create a
meadow.
The Chairman. It's probably easier. But I have to agree
with you, I'd like to see more trees growing. I think it is--I
am the wildlife specialist and I like to see trees that produce
certain foods for certain wildlife so I can pursue them.
Mr. Klemow. I guess one of the reasons for lack of trees is
that the species mixes that are sown on the site are herbs and
grasses. Even worse, they're all foreign species that are
actually aliens to this area.
The Chairman. Why?
Mr. Klemow. Mainly to establish a vegetable cover quickly.
The Chairman. Well, that's the meadow. I am talking about
the trees. Can they plant trees--.
Mr. Kanjorski. No, not in the present morphology. They just
backfill with the rock and then they put a half inch or inch of
topsoil and it can't sustain vegetation of a tree. That's the
problem. If we did it comprehensively we could move earth and
then get the clays and the soils necessary to sustain a root
system for a tree. It isn't done that way.
The Chairman. Well, I am hoping that they look at the
possibility. I don't think trees would be that much more
difficult if we have the water base. I do believe it could
occur.
Mr. Klemow. See, other problem is that the meadow actually
prevents trees from coming in.
Mr. Sherwood. If you look at the strip mining piles, they
are covered with white birch.
Mr. Klemow. Gray birch, yes.
Mr. Sherwood. White birch, gray birch. OK. But not knowing
about gray birch--but that must grow on those acidic sites.
Mr. Klemow. Right.
Mr. Sherwood. So therefore, why wouldn't trees grow after
they get them--I mean I know a strict meadow inhibits the tree
but it's not easy to start a Pennsylvania forest from scratch
because the normal trees that are planted in the west aren't
our native species anyway. It's very easy if you cut one over
to have it regenerate but not when you bulldoze. So what is the
solution?
Mr. Klemow. I think we just have to be a little bit patient
because if you want to reclaim a site and go out there 3 months
later and see a lush community, then all you're going to be
able to grow is a meadow. But if you're willing to wait two to
4 years and then go out, eventually you will have the forest
that will be starting to come in. As a matter of fact, there's
some areas on Earth Conservancy lands that have been rough
graded that are now starting to look very good because you get
the revegetation--.
The Chairman. If you do birch or gray birch growing, that's
a very short leafed species and the more desirable species will
grow up in the shade.
Mr. Klemow. If you amend the soil. Right now in a culm
bank, I don't see that happening that much.
The Chairman. Let me go back. Alex, if what you say is
true; that your consortium is working well together and you
have the plan, why do we have to have a plan? All we have to do
is to figure out how to sell the bonds so the plan works,
right?
Mr. Rogers. Well, I think we're working on parallel tracks.
We are developing the plan. We've discovered that many of the
Federal agencies weren't talking to each other--.
The Chairman. Well, actually they never do.
Mr. Rogers. But really for the first time we're going to
build an integrated data base inventory of acid mine drainage
outfalls in the area, abandoned mine land sites. This will be
the blueprint that when the money frees up, we will know how to
spend it.
The Chairman. That goes back. Why do I have to use the
Federal agencies at all if you have a plan and the consortium
in place and we fund it?
Mr. Rogers. If you fund it, I think that's exactly right. I
think you'll streamline the Government significantly.
The Chairman. I am afraid, with all do respect to my
friend, if the EPA gets involved in it--which reminds me, do
you know--every time we have cleanup area here, reclaimed area,
an EIS statement has to be filed?
Mr. Rogers. I believe that's right.
The Chairman. That takes time. That ought to be eliminated.
Mr. Kanjorski. And expensive.
The Chairman. And expensive. I mean that's just an idea.
Mr. Kanjorski. The only provision, Mr. Chairman, that we
put in for the corporation was for the comfort level of the
Congress that the funds would properly be used. I mean we are
talking about a larger--.
The Chairman. Right now they're so uncomfortable, some of
those agencies, they might be more comfortable--.
Mr. Rogers. Well, we would certainly be open to
Congressional administrative oversight. But you hit on the
right point, We are taking matters into our own hands and if
this funding proposal comes through, we're going to clean up
this area significantly quicker than the Federal or state
programs.
The Chairman. Mr. Sherwood.
Mr. Sherwood. Mr. Hughes, are you familiar with the
limestone bed that was set up in Sullivan County? How is that
working?
Mr. Hughes. Right now I think it's been about 6 months
since it's in operation, that system is on the big Loyalsock
Creek in Sullivan County.
Mr. Sherwood. Yes. One of the great trout streams in the
northeast, Don.
Mr. Hughes. I was put in by the state Bureau of Abandoned
Mine Reclamation and after 6 months' time now it's not enough
time that you would get the fluctuations in the water quality
out so that it would become a more steady state. However, just
in the 6-months' time that particular stream was very low in
pH, probably about 4 and-a-half. It had a lot of aluminum--
metal contamination to the water and some iron involved. When
they put in the limestone bed trenching system in there, it's
called a Successive Alkaline Producing System, a SAP system is
what we call it, as one method of treatment. Having, run the
water through that limestone bed and come out the other end at
the discharge pipe, the pH is holding pretty steady at 6 and-a-
half right now and water quality down stream has been improved
dramatically just over the course of 6 months. The limestone
with its high calcium carbonate content allows a lot of the
metals to precipitate out a lot quicker and the pH in the water
adjusts and becomes a little bit higher so the downstream
impacts of that particular stream are going to be positively
impacted in the future.
The Chairman. Will those rocks have to be removed and
replaced?
Mr. Sherwood. That's exactly the question I asked him when
I went to see it.
Mr. Hughes. I think in that particular situation up there,
if they have a flushing mechanism in the place that's at the
bottom of the bed--if they have a PVC pipe flushing system,
they would manually be able to go out there and flush that
every now and then to take out any flock that may be left in
the bed and they would just have to flush through a
sedimentation basin or a polishing pond to collect the aluminum
or metal precipitate so that it doesn't get--.
The Chairman. Sediment pond is what you're talking about.
Mr. Hughes. Yes. A lot of these systems do have that and if
the discharge doesn't have iron--if the iron isn't coating the
rocks, which in some cases we have done this in the past and
that's been some of our failures--is we've put limestone rock
in discharges that were heavily impacted by iron and they
armored the limestone and made it virtually ineffective--or
maybe 20 to 30 percent effective to actually produce a higher
pH and adding alkaline generation to the water. I think we've
learned from the past not to do with that high iron discharges.
We generally--.
The Chairman. You take out the aluminum and anything else.
Mr. Hughes. You take out the aluminum and some other trace
metals. As long as we have a flushing mechanism to get out the
precipitate.
Mr. Sherwood. They covered the limestone rock. It was a
very hard limestone rock, so it wouldn't dissolve, with an
inner material that was waste from the horse manure and
mushroom beds and they used that to filter the sun to keep from
destroying the rock.
The Chairman.
Mr. Kanjorski. Thank you. I'll direct it to, I guess, Alex
and to Dr. Klemow. Can you give us some examples of--the
Committee some examples of the successes we've had in the last
year in some of the projects of the GIS consortium because I
think the Chairman--GIS is another word that's out there. Tell
us about the GIS.
Mr. Rogers. The GIS system, Geographic Information System,
has all--takes information from many different sources and
combines them in one data base. I mentioned topography,
vegetation. We do this with remote sensing and digitizing
information. We've then taken that information--we've already
put the shovel into the ground--and Ken has worked on this in
the Earth Conservancy land where we have taken acid mine
drainage sites, we have the GIS information about those sites
and then we've invested in very innovative technology--some of
which Robert's alluded to--to clean up. But, Ken, you have
those results on the tip of your tongue. Why don't you give the
Chairman some of the numbers--how we've reduced the iron
content and aluminum in the water.
Mr. Klemow. We have. We have two wetlands that are in
place. The first was a demonstration site and that was about
one-third of an acre and that was just to show that the
wetlands can be used to removed iron in the anthracite region.
That has never been shown before.
But right now probably the best site that we have is the
second site which is the one that's located again in Hanover
Township. And for that one we're actually pumping water up out
of the mines because hydrologically we just couldn't get the
wetlands down stream--in fact, again when you talk about some
of the problems with legislation and the current rules, we have
an idea for putting the wetland actually next to an existing
crater and actually we have lessons of the army core of
engineers and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
Protection--but we just felt that doing the permitology on the
whole thing would take maybe two to 3 years that we just didn't
have so we decided to go a slightly different location uphill
and therefore we have to pump the water uphill. Basically we're
pumping 500 gallons per minute. And the thing that is
interesting is that we're directing the water through an
aeration system--it's never been attempted before--which forces
oxygen into the water and that gets the chemical reaction to go
a lot quicker. And basically what we do is we get the iron to
chemically oxidize and so once it's oxidized, we filter it
through a bed of plants in the wetland and the plants are very,
very good at removing the iron.
So the thing that was interesting is that we didn't really
know when we started this project--when we turned on the
switch, you know, last April or May I guess it was--would it be
5 percent successful, 50 percent, you know, 80 percent
successful, and over the past 5 months I've had a student take
readings on a monthly basis and we've been removing, as I say,
somewhere between 96 to 98 percent of the iron which again
accounts for about 300 pounds of iron per day.
The Chairman. You were going to do this next to a creek?
You were going to do that but there was some question about the
permit process?
Mr. Klemow. We were concerned about the permitology
possibly holding us up.
The Chairman. Second, is the creek contaminated now with
the iron, et cetera, et cetera?
Mr. Klemow. Yes, and the answer is because we cannot treat
all of the water coming out of the bore hole because we just
don't have enough area.
The Chairman. It would seem to me if you could expand that
area and treat that area with your methodology we ought to be
able to expedite the permitting process. To me this makes more
sense than putting an artificial project in.
Mr. Kanjorski. Mr. Chairman, if I may add--this is an
excellent point. When you do this comprehensively by getting an
inter-agency agreement on the Federal level and on the state
level, you will be able to put these people right into the spot
so you won't go through what we call the malaise of bureaucracy
of permitting. And instead of wasting years and thousands and
thousands of dollars, these people can go right to work and
solve the problem. They have the technology to do it.
The Chairman. Can we make up a larger area to take the
water we want--.
Mr. Kanjorski. Yes.
The Chairman. What we want to do is purify the water. Or
not purify it. We want to take the best of it so the good
stuff.
Mr. Klemow. Right. But we don't just have the money right
now to do it. There's no agency I know of to pay for it.
The Chairman. Tim, do you have any questions?
Mr. Holden. No.
Mr. Sherwood. Thank you, Gentlemen.
The Chairman. I have been very, very impressed. I think
that we ought to explore this more to see if we can't do
something along those lines to get the water clean. My
interest, for your information, is primarily the water and the
municipalities. And one other question, you talked about the
conservancy lands. Now, who owns that?
Mr. Kanjorski. Earth Conservancy.
Mr. Rogers. It's a nonprofit organization.
The Chairman. What are you going to do with the land if you
reclaim it? Is it just going to go wild or are you going to let
it be available for the communities?
Mr. Rogers. Well, the organization started with a very
extensive land use planning. They're going to preserve it and I
think about 10,000 acres in open space for recreational
purposes. Some of it is being used for industrial development
or residential development. Always the objective is to convey
the land back depending upon who the owner will be. So in the
case of industrial development, it's to convey it to the local
chamber of the municipality so that industrial development can
occur on that section but that for the 10,000 acres that will
remain open space.
Mr. Kanjorski. They are in the process now of building a
2,000 acre multipurpose park and that will take the industrial
parks, the technical sites, both housing and the first really
comprehensive industrial--.
The Chairman. And that will help support the other 10,000
acres.
Mr. Kanjorski. You bet it will.
Mr. Klemow. In my essay I discuss smart reclamation at
present, we find a site, we level it and sow it with grass
seed. I think what we do need to do is have a better method of
trying to target what the ultimate use of the site is and then
directing the restoration effort toward whatever the ultimate
site is and that is where GIS is really going to help us.
Mr. Kanjorski. And Earth Conservancy, Mr. Chairman, has
been an operating organization for about 6 years now so really
it's a model taking 17,000 acres of land and doing many
different things with it to prove all the things that we're
talking about that we want to do comprehensively on 120,000
acres. We pretty much have a feel and an experience now of 6
years of how to do this, everything from making wetlands to
reclaiming the mine lands into industrial park areas into
making recreational preserve areas. It's all there and it's
already been done so what we're really talking about is saying
let us build off that model and multiply that model six or
seven times and we will be able to effectively and efficiently
reconstruct the anthracite coal fields of Eastern Pennsylvania
in their entirety within a 25 year period.
The Chairman. I'll make a suggestion, and it's probably out
of whack here, but you might want to consider selling some of
my sportsmen groups on this idea for wildlife rehabilitation
too. I know that some people say that's a bad word. I hope it's
not in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Kanjorski. No. We're building a duck area.
The Chairman. A duck area, deer, rabbits, squirrels,
whatever you want to do, because then you get another group
of--category that's supporting what you're doing, I've noticed
there's been a tendency especially on the Federal level to
downgrade that effort and I don't think--that's not only not
incorrect but I think it's a terrible way to help what we call
managed land. If you're going to have it, you ought to get more
support because--that's just a comment.
Mr. Klemow. If I may, in the western part of Pennsylvania,
there's actually an organization called AMD and ART. They
incorporate large landscape architecture techniques into mine
drainage restoration projects. They actually create what they
call ``places'' where people can actually go and want to be at
for recreation and hiking and other things like that. Again, I
think that's something we ought to be looking at in this area.
The Chairman. Well, again, thank you gentlemen. It's been
very informative. I thank the audience, those that stuck with
us for these 3 hours. And I am going to congratulate my Members
for being on time. Mr. Sherwood, thank you for doing this. Mr.
Kanjorski, thank you very much. And, Mr. Holden, thank you very
much. Pennsylvania, I want to thank you--or the Lackawanna
area, we're in good shape so thank you very much. This
Committee--the record will be open for 10 days if anybody would
like to submit any written testimony to the Committee.
[Whereupon, the committee was adjourned.]