May 17, 2018 3 min read

Jon Carter’s house in East Finley Township sits above a panel of Consol’s Enlow Fork Mine.

In 2006, while work was going on under him, the front of his house sank 2 ½ or 3 feet. It took about six days for the house to even out.

“We walked up and downhill,” he said. “We stayed in the house the whole time.”

The effects of longwall mining on surface features aren’t limited to houses and other buildings. It can also cause surface streams to pool in spots along their path or drain streams underground; dry up or move springs; and change moisture levels in soil.

“This longwall mining we know has subsidence effects,” said Daniel Bain, an academic who is part of a University of Pittsburgh team preparing an assessment of longwall mining’s subsidence effects for the state Department of Environmental Protection, during a presentation he gave Wednesday to about 30 people at the Golf Club of Washington in South Strabane.

“We know in some cases how to fix these subsidence effects. And the question is, there’s this bigger negotiation between the state, the citizens of the commonwealth, the mining companies, about how and why this thing should be done,” Bain said.

Bain’s presentation, which focused on the hydrologic effects of longwall mining, was hosted by Upper Wheeling Creek Watershed Association.

A 1994 amendment to the state mine subsidence law requires the Department of Environmental Protection to prepare assessments of underground mining’s effects on land, buildings and water resources with the help of professionals. The last report was completed in 2015 and dealt with a period from 2008 to 2013. The one underway now deals with the subsequent five years.

Bain said measuring the effects on water levels in soil is especially difficult.

At least part of the reason for this is built into the law requiring the regular subsidence reports, known as Act 54. The law includes language that “nothing herein shall be construed as authorizing (DEP) to require a mine operator to submit additional information or data, except that it shall require reporting of all water loss incidents or claims of water loss.”

“What we have to do is demonstrate that there’s water loss in the soil, which is not easy,” Bain said. “In order to start getting the kind of data you might want to really understand what is going on in these hillslopes, which is arguably going to be huge, you’re going to have to overcome this kind of inertia that was put directly into the legislation.”

Active longwall mining operations in the area include Consol’s Pennsylvania Mine Complex – which is made up of Harvey, Enlow Fork and Bailey mines in Washington and Greene counties – plus Contura Energy’s Cumberland Mine in Greene County.

Coal mining is less prevalent in Southwestern Pennsylvania than in its heyday, but some companies still carry on longwall operations. Alliance Resource Partners, which operates Tunnel Ridge Mine near Wheeling, W.Va., is seeking DEP permission to open an active mine with four longwall panels in western Washington County.

Bain said he expects Tunnel Ridge to be “relatively shallow,” which, all else being equal, tends to cause more surface effects.

“If you look at the complaints … when one of the mines was in the deep areas, that’s not when you’re getting the complaints to DEP saying, ‘Go and fix this.’ It’s when you’re getting to the shallower (area) when you have lots and lots of complaints.”