OSM APPROVAL GIVEN TO WV MINING REGULATORY PROGRAM

On Christmas Eve the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) published its approval of two long-pending revisions to West Virginia’s surface mining regulatory program.  The changes concern WV’s rules governing cumulative hydrologic impact assessments and thresholds for determining when “material damage to the hydrologic balance” has occurred.  The approval of the revisions provides the WV Department of Environmental Protection (WV DEP) with a much better regulatory tool to determine when a mining related discharge/activity has caused “material damage to hydrologic balance” under provisions of the federal Surface Mining Control & Reclamation Act and the WV Surface Coal Mining & Reclamation Act.  The coal association supported the proposed revisions at the Legislature and in three separate federal public comment periods established by OSM.  OSM’s approval of the revisions is effective immediately.  The approved revisions delete the definition of “cumulative impact” and replace it with a new definition of “material damage”:  Material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area means any long term or permanent change in the hydrologic balance caused by surface mining operation(s) which has a significant adverse impact on the capability of the affected water resource(s) to support existing conditions and uses.