The Power of Coal: Why People in Colstrip, MT Can't Drink the Water

"Wathen Said has tested the arsenic levels around the county and found levels as high as 0.840 mg/L. The legal limit is 0.1 mg/l. and protective steps need to be taken at 0.5 mg/l."

 The Power of Coal: Why People in Colstrip, MT Can't Drink the Water (via spot.us)

Bluff collapse at power plant sends dirt, coal ash into lake

November 1, 2011

Milwaukee Riverkeeper, Cheryl Nenn was recently quoted regarding the recent bluff collapse, which sent coal ash into Lake Michigan.
[excerpted from JSOnline.com]
by Meg Jones & Don Behm.
Oak Creek - A large section of bluff collapsed Monday next to the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant, sending dirt, coal ash and mud cascading into the shoreline next to Lake Michigan and dumping a pickup truck, dredging equipment, soil and other debris into the lake.
There were no injuries, and the incident did not affect power output from the plant.
When the section of bluff collapsed and slid from a terraced area at the top of a hill down to the lake, Oak Creek Acting Fire Chief Tom Rosandich said, it left behind a debris field that stretched 120 yards long and 50 to 80 yards wide at the bottom.
Aerial images show a trailer and storage units holding construction equipment tumbled like Tonka toy trucks and were swept along with the falling bluff in a river of dirt that ended in the water.
"This is definitely a freak accident," U.S. Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Brian Dykenssaid.
As a company hired by We Energies began cleanup in Lake Michigan, the utility confirmed that coal ash was part of the debris.
"Based on our land use records it is probable that some of the material that washed into the lake is coal ash," We Energies spokesman Barry McNulty said. "We believe that was something that was used to fill the ravine area in that site during the 1950s. That's a practice that was discontinued several decades ago."
The Environmental Protection Agency is in the process of developing stricter regulations of coal ash following a 2008 Tennessee coal ash pond washout that created a devastating environmental disaster.
No one was inside a trailer nor three box-like storage units that were sucked up in the mudslide, which also pushed a pickup truck into Lake Michigan and destroyed a temporary tool storage shed, We Energies spokesman Brian Manthey said. Some of the equipment was being used to dredge a storm water retention pond close to the lake.
Noting that about 100 construction workers were in the area at the time of the incident just after 11 a.m. Monday, Manthey said "we're very fortunate that there were no injuries reported." The construction workers are not We Energies employees.
Rosandich said contractors were taking an inventory of what exactly was lost in the mud slide.

Fuel sheen on lake

A fuel sheen covered the surface of Lake Michigan next to the plant Monday afternoon. Clean Harbors, the company hired by We Energies, will deploy 1,500 feet of linear boom on the water to contain the debris and fuel. McNulty said the weather forecast for Tuesday is favorable for cleanup of the lake.
The bluff failure was near a new air quality control system under construction. Following the collapse, authorities were testing the soil for stability as well as testing soil around the air quality control building under construction. Manthey said there was no danger of a further collapse.
Just what caused part of the hill to collapse was unknown. The National Weather Service office in Sullivan reported only 0.23 inch of rain fell at Milwaukee's airport Sunday and the only precipitation prior to that was a trace that fell on Oct. 27, meteorologist Ed Townsend said
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee geology professor Tom Hooyer said that based on aerial images of the site, seepage from a high water table is more likely the cause of the failure than erosion from the lake especially considering Lake Michigan is about 200 feet below the bluff site that failed.
Hooyer questioned whether the retention pond near the site of the collapse had a lining. If not, it's possible seepage from that pond could have loosened the nearby soil, he said.
Manthey said a storm water retention pond uphill from the mud slide is not lined.
Power continued generating at both the original and new coal plants. Because the pollution control equipment was not yet hooked up to the plant, the incident didn't affect operations at either plant, Manthey said.
Oak Creek's water utility was also not affected because the community's water intake pipe is two miles north of the power plant and one mile out into Lake Michigan, Oak Creek utilities engineer Mike Sullivan said. Oak Creek supplies water to residents of its city as well as Franklin and the northern half of Caledonia.
Oak Creek water utility officials were worried that the water pipes it uses to supply water to the We Energies plant might have been severed in the bluff collapse but Sullivan said that did not happen.

Debris flows south

Maureen Wolff lives in Caledonia about a mile from the power plant and can see the plant's smoke stacks from her home. She walked to the lakefront shortly after the incident and was dismayed to see lots of debris and wood floating south toward Racine. Because of the dark color of the debris, Wolff wondered if coal ash ended up in the lake.
"All this is going along the coast line and they're telling people all it is is just a few trailers and possibly some tools. No one is saying what exactly is in it," said Wolff, a Caledonia resident for more than 50 years.
Later Monday afternoon, We Energies confirmed that coal ash was likely in the debris.
A local environmental group leader said coal ash was disposed in multiple locations over the years, when environmental rules were much more lenient.
"We definitely want the environmental agencies and We Energies to study how much of that coal ash, if any, went into Lake Michigan because it does pose such a threat to human health and the environment," said Cheryl Nenn, Riverkeeper with the group Milwaukee Riverkeeper.
Wisconsin has more stringent coal-ash disposal rules than many states, Nenn said, but there are still concerns given the historic practices of ash disposal before the 1970s brought new environmental regulations like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
"The (Tennessee) disaster in 2008 highlighted the need to have consistent regulations nationwide and more regulation as to where these things are stored, how they're monitored, and how closely they're put next to drinking water sources," Nenn said, noting Lake Michigan's role as a source for drinking water for more than 40 million people.
The air quality control system project under construction at Oak Creek is the second most expensive construction project ever undertaken by We Energies, with a price tag of $900 million. Construction began in 2008.
The project is adding scrubbers and other pollution control equipment to reduce the emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.
The air controls will serve the original Oak Creek coal plant, which has four boilers that opened from 1959 to 1967. The original coal plant is just south of the new two-plant coal operation that opened earlier this year, at a cost of more than $2.3 billion.
During an investor conference call last week, company Chairman and Chief Executive Gale Klappa said the project was about 90% complete and was on time and on budget, with the new controls expected to undergo testing before completion in 2012.
In a report filed last week with the state Public Service Commission, We Energies said the air emissions control construction project had gone 2.4 million hours without a lost-time injury.
In 2008, We Energies hired the Washington Division of San Francisco-based URS Corp. to perform the engineering, management, engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning for the project. Known as Washington Group until it was sold to URS, the contractor did a similar pollution-control project on the We Energies coal-fired power plant in Pleasant Prairie several years ago.
URS Washington also built the new natural gas-fired power plant in Port Washington for We Energies, and a coal-fired power plant near Wausau for Wisconsin Public Service Corp.

 

Coal ash spills into Lake Michigan after bluff collapse

Yellow highlighted area shows portion of a bluff, comprised of coal ash, in We Energy Oak Creek Power Plant that collapsed into Lake Michigan. Google Maps

Resulting dirt-coal ash mudslide extends beyond the length of a football field

By Sarah Whitmire

5 hours, 28 minutes ago Updated: 5 hours, 24 minutes ago

A cascade of coal ash, dirt and mud fell into the shore of Lake Michigan yesterday after a large section of bluff collapsed beside the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. It is unknown how much coal ash fell from the pile, but the spill left behind a debris field about 120 yards long, the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reports.
"Based on our land use records it is probable that some of the material that washed into the lake is coal ash," We Energies spokesman Barry McNulty told the Journal Sentinel. "We believe that was something that was used to fill the ravine area in that site during the 1950s. That's a practice that was discontinued several decades ago."
As iWatch News has previously reported , coal ash is the leftover residue from burning coal that is known to contain neurotoxins like lead and mercury and the carcinogens such as arsenic. In a series of investigations , iWatch News has examined the lack of federal oversight of the waste and its affects on communities near coal ash dump sites.
House Republicans championed legislation in mid-October that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its ability to regulate coal ash and give regulatory authority to the states — a move that would shift authority away from the EPA and reduce federal regulations that Republicans say are burdensome.The Obama administration has voiced opposition to the House legislation, calling it “insufficient to address the risks associated with coal ash disposal and management.”
The Lake Michigan spill is similar to a dam break at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in 2008, where 1.1 billion gallons of coal slurry was dumped across hundred of acres — killing nearby wildlife and damaging homes.
The cause of the Wisconsin bluff collapse is still unknown. None of the 100 or so nearby workers were injured in the spill, and clean-up has already begun. U.S. Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Brian Dykens called it a “freak accident.”

 

Tr-Ash Talk: Yet Another Coal Ash Spill

1 November 2011, 11:25 AM

Raviya Ismail

Tr-Ash Talk: Yet Another Coal Ash Spill

Coal ash spills into Lake Michigan near Milwaukee power plant

Coal ash spill into Lake Michigan

We’re closing in on the 3-year anniversary of the TVA coal ash disaster and there are still no federal regulations in place protecting us from coal ash. And now, another spill: in Oak Creek, Wisconsin a bluff collapsed, sending coal ash and debris from We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant into Lake Michigan.
Writing this off as a “freak accident” or “mudslide” is a dangerous err in judgment. Coal ash has toxic levels of arsenic, hexavalent chromium, mercury, lead and other chemicals. Would you want that in your drinking water? No, and sadly, that is a reality to people who live near these sites in Wisconsin.
We’re still waiting on details from this spill (how many tons of coal ash, how far does it extend, etc.) and there are many questions. Maureen Wolff lives a mile from the power plant and walked to the shoreline shortly after the incident. She saw the dark color of the debris and wondered if it was coal ash.
“All this is going along the coast line and they’re telling people all it is is just a few trailers and possibly some tools. No one is saying what exactly is in it,” she is quoted saying in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The power plant confirmed later that coal ash likely ended up in the lake, which is the drinking water supply for 40 million people.  Apparently there were no wells monitoring the coal ash fill, so we don’t know if heavy metals from the coal ash deposit have been polluting the lake even before the spill, and if these contaminants are flowing through groundwater to the lake now.  It is inexcusable for We Energies, who knew that coal ash was buried onsite next to an unlined pond, to fail to determine the stability of the fill site and its potential to contaminate Lake Michigan.
How many more spills before Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency take action to finally protect people from this toxic waste stream? Ironically, Wisconsin is sometimes referred to as “the gold standard” for states handling disposal of coal ash. Yet between this spill and the 13 documented cases of contamination from coal ash in Wisconsin, it’s clear that even the “best” state’s standards don’t always protect water quality.  This is why we need federal oversight to rein in this toxic waste and protect our drinking water and the nation’s invaluable water resources, like the Great Lakes.
The EPA has yet to release its coal ash proposal, but in the meantime the House of Representatives passed a dangerous bill that will fail to protect people from TVA-like spills  or continued contamination in communities across the country.
Wisconsin Representatives Ron Kind, Tammy Baldwin and Gwen Moore voted for this bill (seemingly to protect the interests of We Energies) despite the inadequate protections.  This spill reminds us that serving utility interests doesn’t serve even the basic public interest of protecting water quality.  And unfortunately we must wait as the Senate recently introduced the same toothless bill - S.1751).  We hope Senator Kohl and other coal state Senators will stand up to polluters, like We Energies, in light of this spill and oppose this bill or any other legislation that fails to protect public health and the environment.
We’ve got advocates coming in at the end of the week to meet with Senate staffers and EPA officials to fight for these much-needed protections. Clearly, we need these safeguards now more than ever.
A statement from Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans:

Wisconsin coal-ash spill renews calls for federal rules

Wisconsin coal-ash spill renews calls for federal rules 

November 1,  2011 by Ken Ward Jr. Coal Tattoo

The site of a bluff collapse at the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant in Oak Creek, Wis. is shown Monday, Oct. 31, 2011. A section of cliff the size of a football field gave way Monday at the southeastern Wisconsin power plant, creating a mudslide that sent a pickup truck and other equipment tumbling into Lake Michigan and swept several construction trailers toward the beach. (AP Photo/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Mark Hoffman)

The latest news out of Wisconsin, via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, is this:

A contractor for We Energies will begin skimming fuel and floating debris either later today or early Wednesday off the surface of Lake Michigan near the site of Monday’s mudslide at the Oak Creek Power Plant.

A boom in the lake forms a semicircle 1,500 feet long and extends about 100 feet from the shoreline, forming the area that will be skimmed first, We Energies spokesman Brian Manthey said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.

A second, longer boom will be placed further out in the lake Wednesday to contain fuel and debris that might have been carried farther into the lake.

The contractor beginning Wednesday or later in the week will go onto the water south of the plant to look for debris that may have floated toward Racine County, Manthey said.

A separate contractor was to begin building a dirt berm on top of the hill where the mudslide began to prevent rain from washing additional debris down the slope and into the lake, Manthey said. Rain is forecast Wednesday and Thursday.

So far, details to give us a better idea of the size, scope and consequences of the coal-ash spill have yet to emerge. The Associated Press reported this afternoon:

A We Energies spokeswoman says the debris that washed into Lake Michigan this week during a sudden landslide likely contains toxic coal ash … No one was hurt, but a swath of debris the size of a football field swept toward and into the water. Spokeswoman Cathy Schulze says records of land use in the area suggest there was decades-old coal ash around. She said Tuesday she didn’t immediately have further details on how much coal ash may have spilled.

Despite the lack of details, the Sierra Club was out there before 9 a.m. today with a press release, in which Mary Anne Hitt, director of the group’s Beyond Coal Campaign, called the incident a disaster — not once, but five times:

The EPA has been trying to enact new protections to stop this kind of disaster from happening again, ever since the TVA disaster in 2008, and our do-nothing Congress has been blocking them every step of the way … This disaster in the Great Lakes is a tragic reminder of why the status quo is not good enough. As long as Congress interferes, disasters like this are going to happen, and dozens of communities are at risk … This disaster shows that states are not protecting our health and our environment from cancer-causing coal ash, and as long as the EPA fails to act there will be more coal ash disasters … This disaster is particularly troublesome because We Energies has known for years that its management of coal ash at this facility was a threat to human health.

For those who haven’t heard, the Milwaukee paper’s initial news story is the best discussion I’ve seen so far of what happened:

A large section of bluff collapsed Monday next to the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant, sending dirt, coal ash and mud cascading into the shoreline next to Lake Michigan and dumping a pickup truck, dredging equipment, soil and other debris into the lake.

There were no injuries, and the incident did not affect power output from the plant.

When the section of bluff collapsed and slid from a terraced area at the top of a hill down to the lake, Oak Creek Acting Fire Chief Tom Rosandich said, it left behind a debris field that stretched 120 yards long and 50 to 80 yards wide at the bottom.

Aerial images show a trailer and storage units holding construction equipment tumbled like Tonka toy trucks and were swept along with the falling bluff in a river of dirt that ended in the water.

Here are before-and-after photos from the AP and from We Energies:





The Milwaukee paper explained:

As a company hired by We Energies began cleanup in Lake Michigan, the utility confirmed that coal ash was part of the debris.

“Based on our land use records it is probable that some of the material that washed into the lake is coal ash,” We Energies spokesman Barry McNulty said. “We believe that was something that was used to fill the ravine area in that site during the 1950s. That’s a practice that was discontinued several decades ago.”

The Environmental Protection Agency is in the process of developing stricter regulations of coal ash following a 2008 Tennessee coal ash pond washout that created a devastating environmental disaster.

No one was inside a trailer nor three box-like storage units that were sucked up in the mudslide, which also pushed a pickup truck into Lake Michigan and destroyed a temporary tool storage shed, We Energies spokesman Brian Manthey said. Some of the equipment was being used to dredge a storm water retention pond close to the lake.

Noting that about 100 construction workers were in the area at the time of the incident just after 11 a.m. Monday, Manthey said “we’re very fortunate that there were no injuries reported.” The construction workers are not We Energies employees.

Rosandich said contractors were taking an inventory of what exactly was lost in the mud slide.

So how bad is this?
Well, along with this football-field-sized debris field, the Milwaukee paper’s account described a “fuel sheen” in the lake and also reported:

Maureen Wolff lives in Caledonia about a mile from the power plant and can see the plant’s smoke stacks from her home. She walked to the lakefront shortly after the incident and was dismayed to see lots of debris and wood floating south toward Racine. Because of the dark color of the debris, Wolff wondered if coal ash ended up in the lake.

“All this is going along the coast line and they’re telling people all it is is just a few trailers and possibly some tools. No one is saying what exactly is in it,” said Wolff, a Caledonia resident for more than 50 years.

Later Monday afternoon, We Energies confirmed that coal ash was likely in the debris.

A local environmental group leader said coal ash was disposed in multiple locations over the years, when environmental rules were much more lenient.

“We definitely want the environmental agencies and We Energies to study how much of that coal ash, if any, went into Lake Michigan because it does pose such a threat to human health and the environment,” said Cheryl Nenn, Riverkeeper with the group Milwaukee Riverkeeper.

By this afternoon, the Sierra Club had backed off its “disaster” declaration, but was still referring to this “kind of disastrous spill” in a news release picked up by Daily Kos. Discussing the matter with me via Twitter, Mary Anne Hitt said she hadn’t seen any news reports yet that estimated how much coal ash might have been involved.

Not to diminish what’s happened in Wisconsin — and we still really don’t know much about how bad it is — but let’s remember that the TVA Kingston coal-ash spill involved more than 1 billion gallons of coal-ash slurry. Eventually, the Kingston spill flooded more than 300 acres of land, damaging homes and property, and toxic ash poured into the Emory and Clinch rivers, filling large areas of the rivers and resulting in fish kills.
There was also this Sierra Club statement:

This disaster is particularly troublesome because We Energies has known for years that its management of coal ash at this facility was a threat to human health. They have even been providing bottled water to neighbors who wells have been contaminated.

What’s not said there is that the water contamination problem appears to have been linked not to the coal-ash disposal in the specific area of this week’s spill, but at one or more nearby landfills. See page 525 of this Environmental Integrity Project report.

But in today’s news cycle, and with the polarized political environment, and the non-stop media world, it’s a lot easier to get our attention if you label something with a big word. AEP chief Mike Morris himself was just telling investors and analysts the only reason EPA was working on new coal-ash regulations was “a TV event at the TVA.” And it’s obvious that the House Republicans — led by West Virginia’s own David McKinley – are trying very hard to block EPA from taking meaningful action. (See here, here and here).
Still, there are some things that we do know, and that might be learned from the We Energies coal-ash spill, whether it turns into a “TV event” or not.
First, as Earthjustice coal ash expert Lisa Evans pointed out to me this afternoon, this incident is somewhat similar to a coal-ash landslide in January 2005 in Forward Township, Pa., when thousands of tons of land-dumped ash slid down a hillside, damaging nine homes and a restaurant, and despositing large amounts of ash into yards and creeks. Later, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Register wrote a report outlining potential health concerns for residents of the community, especially children.
Second, it’s important to know that “structural fill” like the We Energies site is among the fastest growing use for toxic coal ash from power plants.  In 2009, more than 8.8 million tons of coal ash were used in fills and embankments, according to this annual report from the American Coal Ash Association.  And as Lisa Evans told me:

EPA’s proposed rules would consider large unconsolidated fill sites to be disposal, so going forward this type of fill would not allowed to be created and then left unmonitored. Also, under a subtitle C rule, utilities would have to identify all of their old disposal and fill sites pursuant to CERCLA. Through identification of these large deposits, regulatory agencies would have a fighting chance at finding those sites that may pose danger, either from leaching or instability. As the law stands now, we don’t know where coal ash has been buried. Thus these large deposits pose continuing threat.

Not for nothing, but the weaker Subtitle D rule favored by some? Here’s what Lisa Evans said:

A subtitle C coal ash rule would make coal ash subject to CERCLA 103 notification requirements, which would require utilities to identify the places where coal ash has been buried. All of them. True, regulators may not actually get to accessing the danger of all of these fills and disposal sites, but a location on a bluff, next to a lake, may be the type of site that would get their attention.

Subtitle D would not require such notification of old dump and fill sites.

Two construction trailers are hung up on the rocks just east of the We Energies power plant after part of a bluff south of the power plant collapsed, sending earth and construction equipment sliding toward Lake Michigan on Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 in Oak Creek, Wis. (AP Photo/Journal Times, Scott Anderson)

 

 Another coal ash spill—this time in Lake Michigan

Another coal ash spill—this time in Lake Michigan

1

by Mary Anne Hitt

• 

1 Nov 2011 1:26 PM

The We Energy Oak Creek Power Plant.Photo: JonnyfixedgearHow many more coal ash spills need to happen before Americans are protected by coal ash safeguards? The latest happened Monday in Oak Creek, Wis., at the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant.
Thankfully there were no injuries. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal:

A large section of bluff collapsed Monday next to the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant, sending dirt, coal ash and mud cascading into the shoreline next to Lake Michigan and dumping a pickup truck, dredging equipment, soil and other debris into the lake.

The ridge was made of coal ash, and a We Energies spokesperson said some coal ash did spill into Lake Michigan. The photos of the site are sad, and they also make me angry.
In 2008's Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal ash disaster, we witnessed firsthand how a lack of strong national protections leaves the job of handling coal ash with state regulators who lack the will and ability to protect communities from coal ash.
And since the TVA disaster, the industry has been lobbying hard to block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from establishing new protections, arguing that states are doing a fine job regulating coal ash. As a result, communities across the nation remain at risk and unprotected.
Just two weeks ago the industry successfully lobbied the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a bill stripping the EPA of the authority to protect Americans from coal ash.
Monday's collapse on Lake Michigan is particularly troublesome because We Energies has known for years that its management of coal ash at this facility was a threat to human health. Indeed, they have been providing bottled water to neighbors whose wells have been contaminated.
This Great Lakes collapse is a tragic reminder of why the status quo is not good enough. As long as Congress interferes, spills -- some deadly -- are going to happen, and dozens of communities are at risk. Congress needs to back off, and the EPA needs to finalize strong protections.
Monday's Lake Michigan coal ash collapse shows that states are not protecting our health and our environment from cancer-causing coal ash, and as long as EPA fails to act, there will be more coal ash destruction.

Mary Anne Hitt is director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, which is working to eliminate coal's contribution to global warming and repower the nation with clean energy. She previously served as executive director of Appalachian Voices, where she was one of the creators of iLoveMountains.org, an online campaign to end mountaintop removal coal mining that received national recognition for innovation and impact. She was also previously the executive director of the Ecology Center and the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project. Mary Anne grew up in the mountains of east Tennessee and now lives in West Virginia.

Salazar plans to bury half-alive Office of Surface Mining

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 30, 2011
CONTACT: Aimee Erickson, Citizens Coal Council Ph) 724-470-3982
John Wathen, Friends of Hurricane Creek, Alabama, Ph) 205-233-1680


Salazar plans to bury half-alive Office of Surface Mining!

(Bridgeville, PA) -- Coalfield citizens throughout the United States join with Congressional leaders in rejecting the Obama Administration‟s announcement Wednesday, by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, to merge the federal Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Aimee Erickson

“This scheme is illegal and defies common sense,” said Aimee Erickson, Executive Director of the Citizens Coal Council. While the many devils in the yet-to-be-released details of the Salazar OSM-BLM merger scheme already raise many serious and practical objections, the illegality of the proposed bureaucratic
entanglement makes the proposal a non-starter.

John L. Wathen

Alabama-based Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen adds, "Even though Secretary Salazar has already refused to fully enforce the federal law that requires OSM to protect communities, land, water and wildlife against abuses by the coal mining industry, it is shocking that he would now propose to bury this half-alive
independent regulatory agency inside the Bureau of Land Management, whose mission includes promoting coal development.”

"We are concerned that one of the motives for the Obama administration's effort to destroy OSM's independent regulatory status is to capture, and use for deficit reduction, the billions of dollars in coal industry fees OSM administers to clean up some of the thousands of miles of poisoned streams caused by abandoned coal mines,” stated Erickson.

"Secretary Salazar and the White House know that eliminating OSM's independent regulatory role and
taking the Abandoned Mine Lands Fund are blatantly illegal, so they are really sending a signal to the Super Committee to use its deficit reduction authority to weaken OSM's environmental protection and dilute BLM's resource management effectiveness in ways that Congress itself would never allow."

“Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is quite correct in her understanding of federal law in stating that
Congressional approval is required to make any such changes to OSM,” said Ms. Erickson. As Sen. Murkowski elaborated in her press release of Oct. 27: “OSM was specifically established as a separate entity, reporting directly to the Interior Secretary, to protect its independence as a regulatory body. I want to make sure that's protected. The proposed merger of BLM – the entity responsible for leasing – and OSM – the regulatory body, seems to fly in the face of the arguments DOI used to support establishing the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement as an independent entity to regulate offshore oil development, separate from BOEMRE, which handles offshore leasing.”

Numerous organizations, from national-level to small grassroots groups, from every region of the United States echo these concerns. “Westerners have seen the poor reclamation performance of BLM in the areas of hardrock mining, coalbed methane, oil and gas development, and uranium; we do not believe that a merger of OSM into BLM will improve OSM‟s efforts in coal reclamation. Secretary Salazar wants to merge an l872 law with a modern law, and the results will be unfortunate,” said Ellen Pfister a Montana rancher and member of the Northern Plains Resource Council Coal Task Force. While Secretary Salazar also states that the move is in the interest of making the most of limited resources,‟ the Citizens Coal Council asserts that any so-called savings claimed by the Obama Administration‟s scheme will be illusory.

Secretary Salazar expressly states in his memorandum to the Directors of the OSM and the BLM that he will seek input from the White House, the Office of Budget and Management, employees and applicable congressional committees. However, as Ms. Erickson pointed out, “it adds insult to injury that the Secretary didn‟t even consult with America‟s coalfield citizens, and we are the ones who will be affected the most.”