War on coal finally getting a closer look

Hot Air ^ | July 13,2012 | JAZZ SHAW

[Hojczyk]

This week, the Natural Resources Committee has “invited” Ken Salazar and Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement Director Joseph Pizarchik to come down for a little chat with Congress to talk about the Stream Buffer Zone Rule.

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 10, 2012 – Today, as part of a more than yearlong investigation into the Obama Administration’s rewrite of a 2008 coal regulation, the Stream Buffer Zone Rule, that could cost thousands of jobs, negatively impact the economies of 22 states and significantly harm American energy production, Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) sent a letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement Director Joseph Pizarchik inviting them to testify at a July 19th oversight hearing.

The hearing will examine 1) the current status of the proposed rewrite and the status of the court settlement agreement providing for the rewrite, and 2) the failure of the Department to comply to date with two subpoenas for documents on the rewrite.

What’s that you say? You haven’t heard about the Stream Buffer Zone Rule? A little background:

Almost immediately after taking office, the Obama Administration began rewriting a recently completed coal regulation, the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule (Rule). T

Despite the fact that a thorough Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was conducted for the 2008 Rule, OSM hired another contractor to write an entirely new EIS for the Obama Administration’s efforts to rewrite the Rule. An Associated Press story revealed that this draft EIS concluded that the Obama Administration’s regulation could cost over 7,000 mining jobs and cause economic harm in 22 states. Shortly after this information was made public, the Obama Administration criticized and dismissed the contractor it had selected to conduct this analysis.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The original surface mine regulations called for a Cessation Order (stop mining) if so much as a handful of dirt from an open pit reached a stream.

[CPT Clay]

Bump

[Calvin Locke]

Ah, yes. I wonder if Gore is involved. He collected royalties from a zinc mining operation on land his father gave him. The runoff polluted a local stream, but hey, he was VP at the time, iirc.

Earth in the Balance, dontcha' know?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I remember arguing with a federal mine inspector over “approximate original contour” regulations included in one of our operations in the early 80s. Our geologist had laid out a series of terraces and drop inlet ponds in our reclamation plan. The fed guy wanted the pitiful, unfarmable slope put back like it was.

[Sequoyah101]

Didn’t realize those hills where coal comes from were farmable. I watch the operation near Centerville, Texas. Amazed at how much overburden they will move to get at the lignite and what has to be put back and what a nice crop of hay it makes within just a couple of years. Looks far better than it did before the draglines come in.

We’ve left reality long behind us.

[JimRed]

How many out-of-work union coal miners will vote Democrat anyway, out of pure reflex?

[Vide]

For royalties read bribe from a Russian communist.

I can't go into detail, but the sleazy bastard tried to sell the property to a sympathetic non-profit when this first surfaced.

[ridesthemiles]

EPA is trying to revise ‘Clean Water Act’ to remove the word ‘navigable’ from rules.

That would allow the EPA to have complete control over the water which runs off your house or garage roof......& it gives them the right to demand permits with high costs & delays for ANYTHING you wish to do on your property.

[Calvin Locke]

There was a mult--part documentary on the history of the oil biz. Hammer was the one that broke ranks with the industry, and knuckled under to the new dictator of Libya, Mummar Khadfi, ushering in the era of oil blackmail.

The "friendship" between the crony "capitalist" and the then-owner of "The Capitalist Tool" was very curious.

I eventually started wondering if Hammer and Forbes were more than friends....

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Vast swaths of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Iowa held (and still hold) surface mineable coal under prime and near prime farm land.

The surface mine law says non prime land must be returned to 95 percent of pre-mining productivity. prime farm land has a 100 percent productivity requirement.

A coal miner must put up (via insurance) a five year bond on the post mining land to keep it stable and erosion free. If the reclaimed land exhibits any problem, the state can seize the bond and make repairs.

[Sequoyah101]

Fair enough. After I wrote that i remembered seeing pictures of a dragline moving over some pretty good looking land.

Never spent much time up in that country. Been there, don’t want to go back.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Surface mining requires preservation of the upper layers. Top soil and the best underlying clay are peeled off with motor scrapers and then stockpiled separately. A mine manager will observe this stripping with an eye toward collecting the most good dirt at the bottom of draws and swales where it has been moved by erosion over time.

The shale is drilled and fractured so the dragline can create a pit for the coal to be removed. The width and depth of the pit is dictated by the dragline’s boom.

The dragline operates from a flat shale bench, created by a dozer. As the pit is exhausted (at the property line or where the coal crops out,) a second and third rectangle is opened up, with the overburden from the next cut being reclaimed into the previous cut with dozers or cast blasting.

A perfectly timed operation will see the scrapers picking up clay and top soil in the third or fourth cut and laying it down over graded and terraced shale in the first and second, ready to be put back together.