INTRODUCTION

Bituminous coal has been mined in Pennsylvania for more than 200 years. Its production has caused widespread, in some cases catastrophic, environmental destruction. Laws and regulations have been passed in attempts to reduce the adverse consequences of the mining of coal. Despite the regulatory controls that have been put in place, the coalfields continue to experience severe environmental damages from mining. This report examines underground mining in relation to the protections afforded to one important environmental resource: wetlands.
 
Wetlands are scarce in the landscape of Pennsylvania, yet they provide many benefits to society as a whole, far in excess of their proportion of the land surface. As a result of the increased understanding of the functions of wetlands and a recognition of their values for flood protection, water quality maintenance, fish and wildlife habitat, aesthetic, recreational, and other uses, wetlands have been afforded special protection both nationally and in Pennsylvania during the last quarter of the twentieth century. That protection is clearly written into the mining laws and regulations of the Commonwealth. 
Like the canary of years past, wetland loss today serves as a warning of more widespread environmental problems associated with longwall mining.

This report focuses on recent permit applications illustrative of current regulatory practice concerning new or newly expanded underground mines. The record shows that the requirements of State wetland protection laws and regulations are virtually ignored by Pennsylvania regulators at every step of the permit process for new longwall mines.

It once was a common practice for coal miners to take caged canaries underground with them. In the enclosed spaces of the mines, poisonous gases that were odorless and invisible sometimes posed a life-threatening hazard to miners. The canary's small lungs and respiratory system would be affected first by the unseen danger. If the canary began to wheeze or gasp, or if it died, miners knew to get out fast before they too were overcome by the invisible gases. The canary served as a living alarm, a warning of danger in the mine.

Like the canary of years past, wetland loss today serves as a warning of more widespread environmental problems associated with longwall mining. It warns of unacknowledged and unregulated impacts associated with a high-extraction technology that was just beginning in southwestern Pennsylvania 25 years ago. It warns of the pervasive environmental destruction that continues to occur despite a quarter-century of environmental laws and regulations designed to prevent such damage from mining and other industrial operations. This warning exposes an apparent lack of commitment on the part of regulators obliged to apply and enforce environmental protections when reviewing and approving underground coal mine permit applications.

There is today a major disconnect between what the laws and regulations say is to be done to protect wetlands and other resources from coal mining and what actually is being done by the agencies whose responsibility it is to implement those laws in Pennsylvania. Unless mine operators and regulatory agencies conscientiously implement environmental protection requirements, all of the best intentioned laws, regulations, and application forms become meaningless. The uncontrolled destruction of wetlands by the underground mining of coal is hidden from public view.
 
Unfortunately, recent efforts to change both the law and the regulatory structure for underground mining in Pennsylvania are explicitly designed to weaken, rather than to strengthen, current environmental protections. The current administration has actively promoted a "Regulatory Basics Initiative" intended to make Pennsylvania environmental laws no more stringent than the bare minimum required by the Federal government in all States. The regulatory failure to protect wetlands in Pennsylvania, however, as described in this report, long antedates the current administration. Most Pennsylvanians would be astonished to learn that wetland protection from destruction by longwall mining has long been virtually nonexistent, in contrast to some measure of PADEP protection of wetlands from most kinds of construction activity Statewide. The existing regulations, alas, are merely pretense in the context of underground mining.
Recent efforts to change the laws and regulations in Pennsylvania are meant to weaken, rather than strengthen, environmental protections.

Enforcement of the environmental controls imposed by law or regulation undoubtedly would entail additional costs to mining companies. The companies may be reluctant to pass those costs along to their consumers (primarily the electric utilities) in a highly competitive energy marketplace. As long as the economic costs of environmental damage can be passed along quietly to surface owners or to taxpayers, however, there is a strong incentive for mine operators to minimize any expenditures on environmental protection, to lobby bureaucrats and lawmakers for reductions in regulatory requirements, to suppress information concerning the actual extent of current and future impacts, and to continue to create far greater environmental damage than necessary. Mine operators cannot be faulted for keeping a close watch on the bottom line. Our public servants and elected officials, however, whose sworn duty is to uphold and enforce the Constitution, laws, and regulations of the Commonwealth, have no such excuse.

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