FRANKFORT — Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, is determined to have a public debate on a bill to prevent coal companies from dumping refuse into the valleys and headwaters of the Kentucky River in eastern Kentucky.

Moberly pulled a legislative rabbit out of his Appropriations and Revenue Committee this week by substituting Rep. Don Pasley’s “stream saver bill” in place of another bill in the committee. Pasley, D-Winchester, has seen the bill for three sessions sent to Rep. Jim Gooch’s Natural Resources and Environment Committee where it was never saw the light of day. Gooch’s family owns a company in Providence in western Kentucky which makes and refurbishes coal mining equipment.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the committee heard from university scientists, coal interests, and people who live in the shadow of mountaintop removal sites and are calling for lawmakers to protect their streams from pollution. The committee took no vote Wednesday night – Moberly said he wanted the full committee on hand before calling the measure for a vote.

“There needs to be this kind of discussion,” Moberly said Wednesday night after two days of testimony on the bill concluded. “That discussion has not been had in the Natural Resources Committee and it it’s not going to be had in that committee, then as long as I’m chairman it’s going to be discussed here.”

The bill would require coal operators to put back the spoils or overburden removed to get at the coal – or remove it to another abandoned mine site. It would not allow the spoils to be pushed over into the valleys and streams adjacent to the mining site as it is now.

Tuesday, the committee heard testimony from Dr. Nathaniel Hitt of Virginia Tech and Dr. Alice Jones of Eastern Kentucky University who said valley fills irretrievably pollute the small streams which form the headwaters of the Kentucky River and ultimately pollutes the river downstream. Wednesday, Bill Caylor of the Kentucky Coal Association and other coal representatives presented their case.

Caylor said the bill focuses only on coal and not other forms of water pollution, cited statistics about the importance of coal to the eastern Kentucky economy and the state’s low electricity rates, and showed a slide show of reclaimed mountaintop removal sites. He said there are 17,893 miners in Kentucky making an average salary of $58,600. He said coal mining provides $230 million of coal severance taxes to the state and coal producing counties.

Caylor said there are only eight active mountaintop removal operations in Kentucky right now and that mountaintop removal affects only 7 percent of the eastern Kentucky landscape. He showed slides of golf courses, airports, industrial sites and residential developments on land flattened by mountaintop removal.

“These (residential) developments are just phenomenal,” Caylor said. “If these lots were in Lexington, Ky., they’d be going for $200,000.”

Rusty Ashcroft of Alliance Coal said the bill will impact all sorts of mining, not just mountaintop removal, calling Pasley’s bill “an anti-mining bill.”

Brian Patton of James River Service, a subsidiary of James River Coal, said the bill would be the death of mining in eastern Kentucky.

“The way this bill is written right now,” Patton said, “it will end mining in eastern Kentucky.”

Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, took issue with that statement, cautioning both sides not to engage in hyperbole and pointing out that a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study concluded limiting or even prohibiting valley fills would have “minimal impact on mining and no impact on electrical rates.”

Teri Blanton of the Kentuckians For the Commonwealth, a citizen activist group which supports the bill, provided her own visual presentation – a virtual flyover of mountaintop removal sites. She demonstrated the size of some of the sites, one of which in Martin County can accommodate the Manhattan skyline, the Great Pyramid, the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building - simultaneously. Another is larger than the area occupied by Lexington. (The virtual tour can be taken on the web at: http://www.kftc.org/blog/archive/2008/01/15/take-a-virtual-flyover)

She said the bill is not about mining but about water, a resource which is becoming more valuable.

“We need only to take reasonable, common-sense steps to protect our water,” Blanton said. “Coal mining and water do not have to be mutually exclusive.”

Truman Hurt, of Montgomery Creek in Perry County, pastor of the Kodak Church of the True and Living God, said he’s a third-generation miner and said he lives the impact of mountaintop removal every day. He spoke of streams that “run black and water with as many colors as the rainbow.”

“I’m not a scientist or expert,” Hurt said. “I can’t tell you what’s in there but I’m sure it’s not very healthy.”

After the testimony, Moberly said there are two sides to the debate.

“We don’t want to do anything to stop coal mining, but on the other hand, I don’t think the scientific testimony we heard yesterday was refuted at all,” he said.

Moberly conceded passage of the bill is a long shot. Even if it makes it out of the A&R; Committee, the rules committee – made up of House leadership – is likely to recommit the bill to Gooch’s committee. But Moberly said he would not call it for a vote Wednesday because so many members were not present. He said the vote should take place at the committee's next meeting.

Asked afterward if that means committee members will have to cast a public vote on the measure, Moberly hesitated, but then answered: “That’s right.”



RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.