Federal agency failed to monitor AZ coal mines water use, report says azcentral.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from azcentral.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Virginia is getting a boost of funding to repair sites that were damaged from coal mining before 1977. The state is expected to receive an additional $22.7 million each year for the next 15 years for its Abandoned Mine Lands Program, or AML, as part of a bipartisan infrastructure bill that Congress passed last year.
Legal Enviros sue feds over W. Va insolvent mine reclamation program
Sebastien Malo
4 minute read
Steam rises from a pile of coal at a mine in Bishop, West Virginia, U.S., May 19, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Environmental groups sued the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement (OSMRE) in Huntington, West Virginia federal court for failing to determine whether the state should overhaul its surface mines reclamation program in light of the insolvency of various in-state coal mines.
In a complaint filed on Monday, the plaintiffs including the Sierra Club say that OSMRE is violating the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) because it has failed to decide whether West Virginia should revise rules tied to the cleanup of abandoned mines through reclamation, even as state regulators have admitted that the state could be more than $100 million short to reclaim 100 private non-producing coal mines it may have to help clean up.