The battle among an environmental organization, a coal mining company and the state over whether 11,000 acres in Donegal and Mt. Pleasant townships are unsuitable for surface mining remains undecided.
The Mountain Watershed Association, a Melcroft-based environmental group, the state Department of Environmental Protection and Rustic Ridge Mine owner LCT Energy L.P., clashed during a two-hour hearing before the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board this week. At issue was whether the state erred in its February 2024 decision denying the watershed’s petition for a review of the impact of mining on the 11,000 acres.
Mountain Watershed has asked the board to rule that the DEP accept its petition.
The acreage contains an expansion area of Rustic Ridge Mine No. 1 that goes underneath the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the proposed Rustic Ridge Mine No. 2. The state is reviewing an application for a permit to mine Rustic Ridge Mine No. 2 in Donegal and Mt. Pleasant townships. DEP attorney Richard Marcil told the judges that he did not know the status of that permit review.
If the state determined the area was unsuitable for surface mining, Marcil said that it is likely it could never be mined or it would be “a high bar” to have that designation removed.
Environmental regulators determined the watershed’s request for an in-depth review to be “frivolous,” containing allegations of harm to the environment from water discharged from the mine. But “an absence of evidence” linked to the harms to the environment from the watershed association’s expert, Marcil said.
Jennifer Schiavoni, an attorney representing Mountain Watershed, said that the petition meets the threshold for the state to consider a review. A hydrogeology report found that the mining operations could double the flow of water into tributaries of Jacobs Creek and destroy fish habitat.
In its petition of about 75 pages, Mountain Watershed provided information from Gordon Johnson, an expert on the potential impact of mining on the Fourmile Run and Jacobs Creek watersheds. It questions the impact on aquatic life, the trout streams and how the wastewater from the mine could hurt the region’s multi-million-dollar tourist industry.
Schiavoni said there could be a loss of water flow from the mine water, impact on the ground water and treatment facilities that could be impacted by the wastewater.
“The Mountain Watershed Association has a plethora of allegations of harm,” Schiavoni said.
There are numerous petitions seeking the state declare areas unsuitable for mining, including about 11 in Westmoreland, Fayette and Somerset counties. Marcil told the panel of five judges that it is unusual for a petitioner to seek to have an underground mine area to be declared as unsuitable for mining.
Marcil said he is aware of only two such petitions being filed against underground mining operations rather than surface mining, since 2015.
Schiavoni said that even though the mining occurs underground, the surface operations that receive water pumped to wastewater treatment ponds, are part of a mining operation. The mine also has other above-ground facilities that constitute surface activities.
LCT has been mining in the Rustic Ridge No. 1 Mine expansion for about a year and nothing has happened at what has been “an incredibly dry mine,” James Corbelli, counsel for LCT, said. LCT Energy has operated is Rustic Ridge Mine No. 1 since 2019 without any violation of its discharge permit, he added.
Without any violations of its discharge permit, it demonstrates that LCT has protected the local streams and surface waters in the area of this mine site, said Mark Tercek, LCT Energy president, prior to the hearing.
The water pumped from Rustic Ridge Mine No. 1 is detained in treatment ponds and then discharged, without adding any chemicals, Corbelli said. The amount of water being pumped from the mine is much less than the company’s permitted amount, he said.
“The target is to stop LCT,” Corbelli said.
But, Schiavoni said that the hearing board should require the DEP to conduct the in-depth review.
“The Mountain Watershed is being held to a standard that is so much more rigorous,” Schiavoni said.
Chief Judge Steven Beckman did not indicate when the hearing board would render a decision.