enforcement and inspection past 1992. Mine subsidence and other non-coal problems cannot be corrected before the AML fund expires. The current funds could be depleted for both tribes and states before the needs identified by SMCRA are anywhere near met. The Navajo Tribe urgently advocates an extension of Section 402(b) of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. The administration of programs for reclamation of Navajo Tribal lands raises two important questions. The first relates to the survey and inventory of the lands to be reclaimed and the second to the machinery and labor used to accomplish reclamation. The Navajo Nation favors the use of total gamma survey to identify and prioritize mine lands for reclamation. We are satisfied that total gamma survey provides sufficient validity to allow us to rely on it for this process. We prefer it to total ground truthing for several reasons. 1. First, total gamma survey can be conducted in a few months while total ground truthing may require several years when dealing with a land mass the size of the Navajo Nation. 2. Second, ground truthing the entire Navajo Nation may be so expensive as to absorb the majority of the funds available under the AML program leaving us with insufficient money to accomplish the extensive reclamation recessary on Navajo lands. Moreover, while the total gamma method is less labor intensive, the construction phase would more than compensate for any relative loss of labor in the inventory and prioritization phase. 3. Third, the significant delay involved in deferring actual reclamation pending complete ground truthing would subject the Navajo people to greatly extended and needless exposure to the imminent health hazards posed by unreclaimed uranium mines. On the second concern the Navajo Nation prefers a more equipment intensive approach for clean up of uranium mine sites. Our concern here is primarily one of safety. Because this task is so enormous and the risks to health so great we prefer to get them cleaned up as soon as possible without the unnecessary risk to health that pick and shovel operations would pose. For mines other than uranium sites we do not object to the more labor intensive approach. For these reasons we feel the insistence by OSM on more labor intensive approaches in some survey and clean-up operations is unwarranted and ultimately at odds with the health and safety goals of the underlying program. The Navajo Nation wishes to thank the committee for your concern on these important issues. We look forward to working closely with you in ensuring the AML fund continues to serve the needs and national interests it was created to serve. August 6, 1987 The Honorable Morris K. Udall, Chairman Interior & Insular Affairs Committee S. House of Representatives Washington, D. C. 20515 Dear Mr. Udall: When we were in Washington on the 3rd for the 10th anniversary of SMCRA, we learned that written "testimony" would be accepted as part of the oversight hearings for 30 days. Enclosed is something I would have liked to have turned in on the third, but didn't know to whom to present it. We hillbillies aren't exactly the brightest of folks---or we wouldn't have even left home to spend three days in that swelter where you are! (Our feet are still swollen from trudging the hot payement down there. No wonder our representatives can't think straight----Washington just ain't fit for human beings!) Thank you you representing our of for your attention---and---congrats on the award from EPI. State. All best, 3 Patricia A. Marsh Patricia A. Marsh enc: 3 P. S. Tell Nick Rahall that, contrary to what his staff assistant told some of the folks from West Virginia, Mr. Rahall most certainly does not just represent folks from the southern end of the State. As a member of the Interior & Insular Affairs Committee, we hope he's also representing folks in the northern to mention the UNITED States and especially coalfield states panhandle of Test. a---AND the rest of the State---not where strip-mining and longwall mining is destroying our way Thanks again. August 3, 1987 to: The U. S. House of Representatives INTERIOR & INSULAR AFFAIRS COMITTEE Three years ago, when our pond disappeared following longwall mining by Consolidation Coal Company's Shoemaker iine, we didn't know about SMCRA or State mining laws. All we knew was that our pond had disappeared about 3-1/2 months after we received a notice from Consol saying they were going to undermine our house within 18 months.. When Consol's lend-agent arrived and we told him about the pond, he said they didn't talk water and they didn't talk barns, etc., and all he was there for was to get a longwal1 agreement signed covering the house. It looked to use like all he wanted was freedom from liability forever for Consol and if they dewatered our whole 49-acre farm in the meantime, it was. no skin off their teeth. It was as though we were being asked to choose between our house and the rest of our property. We didn't believe, and we still don't believe, such a choice should have to be made by any citizen of the U.S. a year; and, two months before our house was undermined, three' We were phoning and writing government officials for thearonths before the very last of our water sources disappeared, we learned about SHCRA and State mining laws. And we learned about them from a VU Law Professor, Patrick C. McGinley, who told us to write OSM--the first time we even heard about Oshi We wrote; OSM inspected; DNR served a violation notice; and we ended up with what the State said was a suitable water-replacement for agricultural purposes--suitable because if is only temporary. Only temporary, the water loss; and only temporary, the water-replacement. City-water was piped in by Consol to replace a barn-well; a watering-trough in the south pasture; and, in the north pasture where the pond used to make a delightful ice-skating rink in winter, we have half-of-a-septic-tank painted Swiming-pool Blue standing out like a AXAX sore thumb. A "suitable" re lacement? City-water as such a suitable replacement that our cows sniffed the stuff, walked away, and preferred dehydration for three days before they'd even sip the stuff! Our water-replacement has frozen in vinter, stagnated in summer, and been turned off by the public service district when a public park needed water for its swiming-pool and golf-course. That water is meant for people, we were told, not animals. And if you're beginning to think about getting rid of the livestock and planting the hay-field in strawberries, forget it: irrigation is a no-no, too. Even in the worst drought, this small subsistence farm had too much water. Now, we're made to feel guilty about every drop that TTows out overthe ground. What, we wonder, would happen if Consol was required to comply with the State's water-replacement law to the letter and replace every watering-trough, well, and pond they've dewatered, and will dewater, in the whole county. The whob county? Marshall County is located in the northern panhandle of est Virginia, right above the liason Dixon line that once divided North from South. xtending from the Ohio River to the Pennsylvania line, there are 3 longwall cool-mining operations undermining the property of rural Marshall County citizens. Twentythree thousand people, about 56 of Marshall County's citizens, live in rural areas; and 308.9 square miles---approximately 98%---of Marshall County is mural. In other words, just about ALL of Harshall County can expect to be dewatered by longwall mining eventually if nothing is done to prevent more of the same. Hore of the same? For twelve years, springs and wells have been disappearing above Shoemaker Hine alone; aid, according to Consol's own figures, approximately 00, of all springs and wells Aryx -2 dry up after longwall mining. People are still waiting, after 12 years, for their temporary water losses to return, Do you wand er why we continue to ask for a definition of only temporary"? Must we wait for 33 years, until Shoemaker's coal is petered-out, before axexe somebody in government realizes that water doesn't run uphill? And that the tax-base and unemployment may seem the least of the problems a politician will have to address himself tor People in Marshall County have, to date, found it necessary to carry in every drop of water for their daily needs: they've kept the Polar-Water people in business; they've traveled to town or halfway across the county to relatives to shower and wash their clothes; they've cried in thanksgiving to God for rainwater, at last, to flush the toilet for free. It's bad enough for a healthy adult or two in a house to contend with such a problem; but when there are eight kids in the house and half of them are in diapers; when you're unemployed or underemployed or elderly or disabled---Good God, what was Congress thinking about when they left water-replacement out of SMCRA? Or would it even have made a difference, considering that the Federal authorities aren't requiring West Virginia to enforce its own laws? Public monies are being used to extend waterlines to people who have waited up to six years for relief---people have been required to pay sky-high hook-up fees and forever-after water. bills who once had private veter supplies free-for-the-using-leaving the coal-company with one less expense added to their costs-of growing even more gigantic and powerful. And here we are, people whose homes are being destroyed, whose water disappears dom à coal-mine, whose lives are being changed so drastically we'll never be the same: WE are the ones required to go out of our way we even want to take part in the permit-process supposedly so vital to the enforcement to SECRA! If we want to inspect a permit application, we can't even view it in our own county where the destruction is taking place. Why, we ask, when other States allow in their a days wages and spend two more days wages (I were even working part-time at mini-wages and the boss. gives permission to be off work!) just spending our merry old time driving back & forth to Fairmont, 3 hours away from back-road... to Fairmont, downstate, and no where near the place where Shoc maker is daring KEYVE undermining our lives. Itizens to view,,such docounty required fome os . Do you have any idea what it's even like to wait to be undermined by a longwall going directly under your house? What it's like to have the State and Consol tell you that they don't know, exactly, when the house will start falling apart, if ever? Do you even mow What to expect when your, house is, longvalled? We certainly didn't! Imagine the panick in a house moving with earthquake-like violence; huge oak beams and oak floor-joists cracking; floor-joists beginning to slip off risers; basement floors cracking; foundations cracking; the whole world sinking and you with a coal-furnace could pull loose from the concerned how Santa is g that chimney at any time.. A week before Christmas, you certainly aren down your chimney And, a couple of weeks later, in the male Winter, in the middle of night, remember the nightmaro of running, by instinct, half-asleep, barefoot and half-naked, toward an outside door and---rude awakening!---the door won't open and the ceiling, twisting and something in the attic has crashed dom on top of of Is it ever over? Tro-and-a-half years later, the house is still moving enough to c ause additional, noticeable damage that can still keep you wide-awake at night when nails screech loose, walls start groaning, furnace ductwork clangs, and the house gives another little shudder of after-shock as though trying to level itself out. |