Hearing set on DEP coal mining impact report
The state Department of Environmental Protection’s Citizens Advisory Council will hold a public hearing next month to accept testimony on a five-year coal mining study released in late December.
The hearing to discuss the Underground Coal Mining Impact Report, compiled from 2008 to 2013, will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. March 27 in DEP’s California District Mining Office with both oral and written testimony accepted.
The report is the fourth to be completed under Act 54 legislation passed in 1994, which revised the law on subsidence damage and required reports, or assessments, to be done every five years on subsidence impacts. The fourth assessment period covered August 2008 through August 2013.
The study found during the fourth assessment period, 31,343 acres of land were undermined, an 18 percent reduction from the previous five-year assessment period. During that time, 40 percent of the undermined land was in Greene County, 19 percent in Washington County and the remaining 39 percent spread throughout Armstrong, Beaver, Cambria, Clearfield, Elk, Indiana, Jefferson and Somerset counties.
Anyone who would like to testify is encouraged to pre-register by contacting CAC Executive Director Michele Tate before March 19 by either calling 717-787-8171 or emailing her at mtate@pa.gov.
The two-hour hearing will take place in Monongahela conference room inside the district mining office at 25 Technology Drive, Coal Center.