By
Timothy B. Wheeler
Sun Staff
Originally published Nov 29 2000
A
Garrett County mining company wants to tunnel
under the North Branch of the Potomac River to get at
coal deposits in West Virginia, raising concerns from
environmentalists and regulators in that state about the
impact on a nationally treasured waterway that is still
suffering from past mining abuses.
Mettiki
Coal Corp., which operates one of only two deep
mines in Maryland, has applied for permits from both
states to expand its existing underground works beneath
the river and extract about 2 million tons of the fossil
fuel from the other side.
"It
would extend the life of our operation here in
Maryland six to nine months," said Mettiki spokesman
David Thomas. The company has mined more than half
of the coal from its 10,000-acre holdings in Garrett
County and expects to exhaust those reserves by 2006.
With
more than 200 workers at its mine and ore
processing plant near Oakland, Mettiki is one of the
larger and better-paying employers in economically
struggling Western Maryland. The corporation is a
subsidiary of Mapco Coal Inc., based in Tulsa, Okla.
The
Maryland Department of the Environment is
reviewing Mettiki's application for a permit to tunnel
under the river and has received no objections from the
public.
John
E. Carey, chief of the department's Coal Mining
Division, said that although Mettiki has mined under
smaller streams without causing any problems, state
officials intend to be especially protective of the
Potomac, which flows past the nation's capital on its way
to the Chesapeake Bay.
Ecological concerns
The
West Virginia Rivers Coalition has objected to
Mettiki's application to mine coal in that state. The
environmental group is worried that a "high-quality"
trout stream feeding into the North Branch could dry up
as the landscape sinks after the coal is removed.
The
project also could worsen the river's historic
problems with acidic water draining out of old mines,
the group contends.
"You're
messing with a house of cards when you're
talking about mining such a thick seam of coal with high
acidity," said Nathan Fetty, a coalition staffer.
Mettiki
plans to take only enough coal from directly
beneath the North Branch to reach the other side, so
there should be little or no settlement of the river bed,
according to a consultant hired by the mining company.
Miners
would tunnel about 360 feet below ground,
boring three or four parallel shafts into the 200-acre
West Virginia tract targeted for extraction.
"The
easiest way to get the coal is from our side of the
river," Thomas said. The area to be mined is surrounded
by abandoned mines, making it costly and difficult to
sink a shaft from above.
The
West Virginia coal would be mined by the
"longwall" method used in Garrett County. A massive
carving device longer than two football fields shears off
chunks of ore and sends them by conveyor belt to the
surface for processing. As the machine chews its way
through the coal seam, the subterranean room created by
removing the coal is allowed to collapse.
The
ground at the surface can sink as much as five feet as
a result. Mettiki officials say there should be little or no
water lost from the trout stream, and they promise to act
promptly to repair any cracks in the stream bed - and to
restock the stream if any fish are lost.
Acid drainage
The
company also assures that there would be no
additional acid mine drainage caused by the West
Virginia operation. All water seeping into the mine
would be pumped out and treated to neutralize its acidity
before it is discharged into the North Branch, as is done
now with water flooding into the Garrett County mine.
The
process is so effective that the company raises trout
for Maryland's Department of Natural Resources at its
treatment plant, company officials point out.
The
upper reaches of the Potomac's North Branch are
slowly recovering from the bright orange, highly acidic
mine drainage that once killed virtually all aquatic life in
the river. Improvements have resulted in part from
costly, government-funded reclamation projects at
abandoned mines.
Mettiki's
plans to tunnel under the North Branch do not
appear to pose any direct threats to the river, said
Raymond P. Morgan II, a biologist at the University of
Maryland's Appalachian environmental laboratory in
Frostburg who has worked to remediate acid mine
drainage.
Trout streams at risk
But
the biologist said he was worried about possible
harm to trout streams feeding into the river.
"We
want to keep them as pristine as possible," Morgan
said, so that the fish in them may naturally restock the
Potomac once its water quality has been restored.
The
West Virginia Division of Environmental Protection
has expressed similar concerns and is waiting for Mettiki
to alter its mining plan or provide further assurances.
"Trout
streams are pretty special waters," said Ron
Sturm, the agency's permit inspector. "We try to give
them special protection."
The
West Virginia environmental group has questioned
Mettiki's assurances that the Potomac would not be
harmed, asserting that the company is "notorious" in
Maryland for violating government mining regulations.
The
company has been cited three times for water
pollution violations in the past five years, according to
John Verrico, spokesman for the Maryland
environmental agency. The most recent incident drew a
$2,000 fine this year for an accidental discharge of
mining sludge from an underground pipeline.
The
company also paid $5,000 to the federal government
in June for safety violations cited in the wake of a
miner's death last year in an underground roof collapse.
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