DEP denies Amerikohl application
SALTLICK TWP. – The state Department of Environmental Protection returned an application to an area coal mining company, citing nearly 200 deficiencies in the lengthy document. William S. Plassio, DEP district mining manager of operations, said that Amerikohl Mining failed to meet certain hydrology, engineering, mapping and administrative requirements, along with compliance with the department regulations, resulting in the return of the application for the White Mine. “The department has completed the initial technical review of the application and determined that extensive technical deficiencies prevent the continued processing of the application in its current state,” said Plassio. “The department concluded that the application would need to be changed so significantly to correct these issues that a complete re-design of the facility is necessary.”
The Acme-based company had proposed to mine approximately 700 acres of underground coal with an additional 425 acres designated for subsidence control and nearly 60 acres for the above ground operation.
The mining operation had drawn fierce opposition from the Mountain Water Association (MWA) and the public. However, Plassio said that the public comments resulting from a March hearing played no role in the return of the application.
“The return of the application was based solely on the technical review performed by the (DEP) California office,” he said. “We did not consider any comments submitted during the public meeting in our decision to return the application.”
MWA executive director Beverly Braverman said that she was not surprised that the application was returned.
“The proposed White deep mine is a reconfiguration of the Rand Am mine proposal from 1994,” she said. “The department denied that permit and beginning in 1994 through 1996, the MWA and the DEP worked to have the denial stand fast.”
Braverman said that she was confused by Amerikohl’s interest in a mining operation that had been denied in the past.
The association, she said, scoured the Rand Am application and compared it to the new mining application filed by Amerikohl and found the two to have similar documentation.
“There was nothing significantly different,” she said. “The hydrology was the same; the likelihood of pollution discharges was the same; none of it will ever change. And I’m sure the DEP did and saw the same thing.”
Amerikohl vice-president David Maxwell deemed that the bulk of the listed deficiencies were “immaterial.”
“We plan to meet with the DEP (June 8) and see where we are at and go from there,” he said.
During the March hearing, Maxwell said the precautionary measures would be taken to stem pollutants from entering the waterways.
To negate the possibility of mine drainage, Maxwell said the White Mine application was scaled back nearly 40 percent so that the operation would not interfere with work done by MWA.
Since forming in 1998, the association has raised more than $5 million in state, federal and private funding to undertake a 12-year program to restore the Indian Creek Watershed.
To date, four mine drainage treatment projects are completed and three others are in the planning stages.
Plassio, meanwhile, said that should Amerikohl decide to re-design the operation and submit a new application, the review process would require advertisement of the document and, if requested, a public hearing conducted.