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A Sinking West Va. Town Struggles
By VICKI SMITH
Associated Press Writer
THOMAS, W.Va. (AP) — Hilda Diffenbaugh hears her house creak and pop as she
lies in bed at night. Occasionally, she wakes to find cracks in her
foundation or walls. Her home is slowly sinking into the past. Like many of
the 452 residents of this town, Diffenbaugh worries her home will tumble into
the shafts left over from long-abandoned coal mines. ``I just hope one
morning I don't wake up and find I'm down in there,'' Diffenbaugh said. The
state is trying to stop the inevitable pull of gravity with an ambitious,
$1.7 million project to pump 30,000 cubic yards of concrete and grout into
the mine to fill the cracks. Thomas is among the lucky few towns getting the
problem fixed. Federal mining officials estimate West Virginia has $600
million worth of abandoned mine land reclamation projects that have yet to be
funded, including 756 sinking problems that would cost some $53 million to
correct. Nationwide, there are some $7.9 billion worth of high-priority
projects like the one in Thomas that affect public health and safety. More
than 80 percent of them have yet to be done. Last year, the states and the
Office of Surface Mining declared 353 Abandoned Mine Land emergencies. Some
of the biggest problems are in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky,
Virginia and Kansas. Few states seem immune. Ohio officials estimate that
more than 6,000 underground mines have been abandoned, covering more than
600,000 acres in 39 mainly eastern and southeastern counties. Maps of
Springfield, Ill., show 270 points where sink holes from abandoned mines may
have appeared between 1867 and 1998. Even Alaska recently grappled with a
125-foot deep open shaft in Homer. So far, West Virginia's Department of
Environmental Protection has done 48 grouting projects like the one in
Thomas, including some in Fairmont, Morgantown, Clarksburg and Shinnston. In
Thomas, contractors are drilling 300 holes around 40 homes so they can pump
in the cement and grout. Filling the voids should prevent further collapse,
said state engineer Gregg Smith. In places where the mine roof has already
fallen, the grout will flow into fractures in the rock, stabilizing it to
prevent more settling. Scaled back from a $3 million plan that would have
covered even more homes, the project also involves moving 230,000 tons of
dirt to change the contour of about 60 acres of land. That should channel
rainfall away from the mine. The state has spent $7 million in surrounding
Tucker County alone, trying to clean up the legacy of what was once a largely
unregulated industry. ``Somebody made a lot of money here, but it wasn't the
people living here,'' Smith said. ``The coal operators probably never even
lived here ... and they left a huge mess.'' Since the 1970s, coal companies
have been required to reclaim mine sites and post bonds to cover the cost to
reclaim the land if the company goes bankrupt. ``You can't just walk away
like they used to,'' said Danny Bennett, a state environmental resource
specialist. Today, there is little overt evidence in Thomas of the
destruction left by the Davis Coal & Coke mine begun in 1887, even though
miles of barren, ruined landscape were left behind after the mine was
abandoned in the 1930s. Dangerous highwalls have since been removed.
Hillsides that were once black with mine wastes are now green. But
underneath, the danger still lurks. ``I don't think it was malicious,''
Bennett said of the mine's creators. ``They just didn't realize the problems
they'd be creating.'' ———
On the Net: West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training:
http://www.state.wv.us/mhst/wvcoalfacts.htm
U.S. Office of Surface Mining: http://www.osm.gov
A Sinking West Va. Town Struggles
RELATED NEWS
Upper Mich. Mines Fight for Survival
"Never cease in the fight for peace, justice, and equality for all people. Be
perisitent in all that you do and don't allow anyone to sway you from your
conscience.".....Leonard Peltier
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