Resources

Introduction

This list of resources includes the websites of coal companies and citizens groups, as well as studies about and lawsuits over the impacts of longwall mining:

1. National Mining Association is the “voice” of the mining industry in Washington, D.C., and the only national trade organization.

2. Families Organized to Represent the Coal Economy is the “voice” of Pennsylvania’s coal industry, which trumpets “benefits” of mining and related businesses to the state economy.

3. Consol Energy is the largest producer of underground coal in the United States. The company has 17 mines, mostly longwall operations in Appalachia. Four of them are in southwestern Pennsylvania.

4. Foundation Coal Holdings is the fourth-largest coal producer, with 12 collieries in Appalachia and the West. Two longwall mines operate in southwestern Pennsylvania.

5. Behind the Plug is the blog of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which promotes the industry spin.

6. Center for Coalfield Justice is a grassroots group that organizes and assists Pennsylvania residents in the fight to protect their properties from the longwall machine.

7. Pennsylvania Sierra Club devotes a web page to the trail of longwall destruction, featuring a letter from victim Laurine Williams, of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. The club’s Allegheny Group has a blog on “clean coal” as well.

8. Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future is an environmental group working to reform the state law known as Act 54, which paved the way for longwall mining.

9. Citizens Coal Council is a coalition of grassroots groups in the country’s coal states, from Alabama to Wyoming.

10. Country Mile Farm is an 1860s historic house in Smith Township, Ohio, keeping an online diary that documents six years of havoc wreaked by the longwall machine.

11. A 2004 study on the social and environmental impacts of longwall mining in southwestern Pennsylvania, funded by the Raymond Proffitt Foundation.

12. Two studies on the effects of underground mining on structures, streams, and water supplies by Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, which is legally required to produce such studies every five years.

13. The Pennsylvania DEP’s webpage on its surface subsidence agents program helps citizens whose properties are undermined, features maps of the active longwall mines in southwestern Pennsylvania, as well as damage complaints and the language of Act 54.

14. A landmark lawsuit filed by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources against Consol Energy for allegedly damaging a 62-acre lake after longwall mining beneath a state park in Greene County. (Click on the link and type in GD 07 000190 to see the complaint.)

15. The price of coal has skyrocketed over the year that the Center for Public Integrity has reported on longwall mining in northern Appalachia. The Department of Energy’s energy information website has current and forecasted coal prices, as well as other economic reports on coal.