Ohio Sierra Club News

Environment is key to economic recovery
Monday, January 19, 2009 Columbus Dispatch

We at the Sierra Club, while sobered by Ohio's economic realities, are excited about ways economic-stimulus funds could be used to create green jobs, reduce climate-change pollution, preserve natural resources and protect the health of all Ohioans. Ohio's short- and long-term economic transformation must include investments that improve our state environmentally while providing ample job opportunities. We propose four priorities for investments:
• Install energy-efficient and renewable-energy technologies in public buildings, which will reduce budget shortfalls by lowering energy bills and increasing our energy independence.
• Invest in water and sewer infrastructure to maintain and replace aging systems that pose a significant threat to human health, local economies, water quality and wildlife.
• Bring Ohio into the 21st century with transit and rail systems that save money and reduce emissions.
• Support state parks, forests and nature preserves. Ohio's economic recovery and protection of our most valued natural resources go hand in hand.
We believe that states submitting innovative, sustainable proposals are likely to receive greater support for funding.
MATT LOVE
Sierra Club, Ohio Chapter Legislative intern

Local Sierra Club Hasn't Taken Position on Proposed Area Strip Mine
By Jim Phillips January 12, 2009 Athens News

Though members of the Ohio Sierra Club make no secret of the fact that they’re not keen on coal as a power source, a local chapter has not so far come out publicly for or against a proposed coal mine in northeast Athens County near Sharpsburg.
“We do not have a position as of yet,” confirmed Lorraine McCosker of the local chapter of the Ohio Sierra Club.
From the perspective of the national organization, however, McCosker said, any new development of coal resources is to be discouraged in favor of more sustainable energy sources.
Former Athens County Commissioner Bill Theisen and a business partner, Jeff Roberts, have been working to buy up leases on the land, in hopes of opening a strip mine. The site has already been mined, reportedly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and includes a number of “highwalls” – sheer upright cliffs of soil – left over from that process.
One major landowner in the area who wants to see the site mined is Donny Stevens, who told The Athens NEWS he owns some 500 acres in the area. Much of that land, however, has been ravaged by the past mining, he said.
“Probably 300 (acres) of it is useless,” Stevens complained.
Because Stevens owns the mineral rights to his land, he could see a profit if the coal beneath it were mined and sold. However, he said, another big reason he wants to see the land re-mined is because, with state regulations on mining much tighter than they were 40 years ago, he believes the land would be reclaimed to a much better state after the new mine was closed.
“Absolutely,” he said. “They have to bring it back to grazing land, or pasture land… or to where we could do something with planting trees back. The way the land is now, there’s nothing you can do with it. It’s all hillsides and highwalls.”
Stevens added that he believes the highwalls represent a serious safety risk, and suggested that, for example, a horseback rider whose mount was spooked might end up going over the side of one.
“Oh my God, there’s some of them 100, 120 feet tall, straight down,” he said.
Members of the local Sierra Club chapter have inspected the site, and McCosker confirmed that it contains numerous highwalls, as well as many invasive plant species such as the notorious pest multiflora rose.
“We had a coal tour back in November, and we did tour the site,” she recalled.
Both McCosker and Mary Beth Lohse of Meigs County, who is on the Ohio Sierra Club’s Coal Committee, said they think Stevens may be overly optimistic about how well the coal-mine operators will restore his land after they’ve mined it.
“The reclamation rules from ODNR (the Ohio Department of Natural Resources) don’t necessarily add up to a better landscape at all,” McCosker said. “And are we going to encourage people to go out and destroy all these highwalls to get a better-looking landscape?”
Lohse agreed that Stevens may be overestimating what he’ll get out of the mine in the way of later reclamation of his land.
“That’s what he believes, but the devil is in the details, in terms of what kind of contract he gets with the mining company,” she suggested. “What he’s interested in is getting rid of the highwalls.”
Lohse said that state regulations do require that mined sites be “re-vegetated,” but added that this doesn’t have to mean it will become good pasture land.
“They could just throw down some grass seed and walk away,” she said. “His idea is, he’ll mine the coal, get the money from selling the coal, and get his land put back in a state that is better. I guess my response to that is, ‘Great – if you can you do that.’”
As for whether the local Sierra Club chapter will ever take a position publicly on the proposed mine, Lohse was non-committal, but hinted that it was unlikely. “In general, we don’t support increased use of coal,” she noted.
However, she said, at this point Theisen and Roberts are still going through Ohio EPA water permitting, and haven’t yet submitted a mining permit application to ODNR’s Division of Mineral Resource Management. (A check of the agency’s Web site confirms that no permit application is pending for the site.)
“Basically, we haven’t seen any details,” Lohse pointed out. “I haven’t really seen the permit (application), so I can’t respond to something I don’t have details for.”
She did say that the Sierra Club’s biggest concerns about the mine would be its potential impacts on water resources such as nearby creeks.
Stevens said he believes such impacts will be minimal.
“Oh, absolutely,” he declared. “Even my wetlands that I have on my property will never be affected by it.”
He added that he doesn’t understand why the Sierra Club, some of whose members are not county residents, should have any right to weigh in on a mine that he believes could not only create local jobs, but also help put his farm back into more profitable condition.
“Unless they’re going to cover my yearly income, and pay my taxes and so forth, they shouldn’t have any input or any say, none whatsoever,” he argued.
Another coal company, Addington Mining of Ashland, Ky., proposed a strip mine in the same general area back in the early ’90s but that proposal never went anywhere.