Press Room
NEW REPORT: Mine Reclamation Crisis Broadens as Nearly Forty Percent of “Active” Mines in Kentucky Haven’t Produced Coal Since 2020
Press Release: Companies May Be Dodging Reclamation Liabilities by Claiming Abandoned Mines are Active, Posing Risks to Communities
Congressional Watchdog to probe Idled mines
Article by Zack Budryk for The Hill, January 18, 2024. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) will investigate the environmental impact of idled “zombie” coal mines in response to an October request from several congressional Democrats, a GAO spokesperson confirmed.
Congressional Office Agrees to Investigate ‘Zombie’ Coal Mines
Article by James Bruggers for Inside Climate News, January 12, 2024. Kentucky citizens’ law group finds 40 percent of state’s active coal strip mines are “functionally abandoned.”
No Time to Waste Averting Another Coal Mine Cleanup Crisis
Appalachian Voices Front Porch Blog by Erin Savage, December 15, 2023. Excerpt: Regulators are ignoring a growing crisis unfolding in modern mine reclamation. Coal companies are often failing to complete timely reclamation, and safeguards to ensure mine cleanup are failing.
West Virginians could get stuck cleaning up the coal industry’s messes
Article by Ken Ward Jr. for Mountain State Spotlight and ProPublica, December 1, 2023. Excerpt: The state’s program for reclaiming abandoned coal mines has long been plagued with problems, but state and federal officials have done little to prepare for this reckoning.
Congressional Democrats ask for review of environmental threat from ‘zombie’ coal mines
Article by Zack Budryk for The Hill, October 20, 2023. Excerpt: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and seven House Democrats asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review potential environmental damages caused by idled coal mines.
Release: Advocates support calls for full investigation of modern mine reclamation crisis
Press Advisory, October 19, 2023. As congressional leaders urge GAO to act, coal-impacted communities demand full accounting of impacts of industry’s failure to clean up Mines
Mine Cleanup Concerns Grow as Industry Declines
Article by Dan Radmacher for The Appalachian Voice, August 3, 2023. Excerpt: Since Blackjewel LLC and its affiliates filed for bankruptcy in July 2019, there has not been a coal company bankruptcy of similar magnitude. But that doesn’t mean the coal industry is recovering. Energy Information Administration anticipates steeper declines for Appalachian coal production in 2023 and 2024 than the national average.
WATCH: Why Coal Companies Love Bankruptcy
Video produced by Adrianne Jeffries and Alan Jeffries for Bloomberg Businessweek, December 16, 2022
WATCH: How a ‘Clean Coal’ Mogul Became a Big Coal’s Fall Guy
Video produced by Adrianne Jeffries for Bloomberg Businessweek, December 8, 2022
The Tiny Insurance Company Standing Between Taxpayers and a Costly Coal Industry Bailout.
Article by by Leslie Kaufman and Will Wade for Bloomberg. November 8, 2022. Excerpt: Indemnity backs two-thirds of West Virginia’s coal bonds. The concentration worries just about everybody
The coal is gone but the mess remains: How big companies shed their obligations to clean up old mines
Article by Josh Saul, Zachary Mider and Dave Mistich for Bloomberg. October 17, 2022. Excerpt: A joint investigation by Bloomberg News and NPR found that Alpha is one of several large US coal companies that transferred old mines in need of cleanup to smaller operators with meager financial resources, raising the risk that taxpayers, rather than industry, will eventually be stuck with the cost.
Coal producers legally must restore damaged land, but some are dodging obligations
Article by A Martínez, Josh Saul, Zach Mider, Dave Mistich for NPR Morning Edition, October 17, 2022.
Excerpt: A Bloomberg News/NPR investigation found large U.S. coal companies used bankruptcy and asset transfers to move old mines to shaky new owners, putting at risk federally mandated land reclamation.
Strip mining aided deadly Kentucky flooding, ex-regulators say. They want an investigation
Article by James Bruggers for Inside Climate News, August 8, 2022. Excerpt: Two former state and federal mining regulators say state and federal authorities should investigate the role strip mining played in last month's devastating and deadly flooding in Eastern Kentucky and the condition of the mines after the torrential rainfall.
'Out of control': Sinking coal industry swamps Kentucky with 'zombie' mine violations
Article By James Bruggers for the CourierJournal, April 19, 2022. Excerpt: As the coal industry collapses in Kentucky, companies have racked up a rising number of violations at surface mines — yet state regulators have failed to bring a record number of them into compliance, internal documents show.