County commissioner partners on local coal-mine project
By Nick Claussen
September 29, 2008
Athens County Commissioner Bill Theisen is actively working with a business partner and local landowners to open a coal mine in Athens County.
Theisen said last week that any new coal mine will create jobs and actually help the environment, and a state official who deals with mining in Ohio said Friday that he agrees with Theisen’s claim.
Local environmental activists argue, however, that any new coal mining will be bad for the environment, and question how many jobs a new mine would actually create.
Theisen and his business partner, Jeff Roberts, are actively working in Athens County to buy leases from property owners. The leases allow coal companies to come in and mine the land after Theisen reaches an agreement with a company. Theisen, who is not running for re-election as county commissioner, wants to do strip mining in the county.
It takes a long time to reach an agreement because the coal in the ground has to be tested and the companies have to complete a number of studies before they can move forward, Theisen said.
In Athens County, Theisen and his business partner have several lease agreements (he would not say how many) including one with property owners Donnie Stevens and Randy Fluharty, who live in eastern Athens County near Sharpsburg on Joy Creek Road.
“There are millions of tons of coal at Sharpsburg,” Theisen said. No permit application has been filed with the state for this mine yet, but Steven said the plans to eventually open a mine there are starting to move forward.
Lanny Erdos, deputy chief of the Ohio Coal Regulatory and Industrial Minerals Program, said earlier this month that no permit application has been filed yet for a mine near Sharpsburg, but said he expects that his office will soon receive an application.
“I know that there is some activity in that area,” Erdos said. He added that with the price of coal rising and the new machinery making it easier to dig coal from the ground, he expects to see several more applications for coal mines in the next few years.
“I expect to see more mining in all the coal-bearing counties in Ohio,” Erdos said. He hopes to see more mines in southern Ohio, he added.
THEISEN WANTS to re-mine land that was damaged previously by coal mines. He said the old mines were completed when state regulations were not strict for mines, and that they caused numerous land problems in the county.
At Stevens’ land near Sharpsburg, for example, coal mines left cliff areas called “high-walls.” The high-walls create large drop-offs that makes it unsafe for walking or horseback riding, Stevens said. The coal mining also took away much of the topsoil and old growth timber, and left trees that are not good for fruit or timber, along with a great deal of brush. The coal mining also left old coal spoil all over his property, he said.
Stevens said that most of his land is unusable as it stands now. He can’t use it as pastureland or farmland because it is too steep and jagged, and the trees cannot be used for anything either. He basically just pays taxes on the land and cannot do anything with it, he said.
Theisen argued that if a coal mine can be dug on Stevens’ land or on similar properties in the county, the mining company would have to do reclamation work on the land when finished with the mine, and would have to clean up the property. It is too expensive for Stevens to pay for this work himself, but the mining company would do it for him, Theisen said.
The land could be brought back to its original slope, as the deep drop-offs could be filled in, and much of the brush could be cleared, Theisen said.
THE STATE LIKES to see mining companies go into areas that have been previously mined, Erdos said. Those properties usually need cleaned up and reclaimed, and the state can have the new mining companies improve the property, he said.
Mining controls are much stricter than they were in the 1960s and 1970s, he added. The state is actually looking into creating new incentives to encourage more mining on land that has previously been mined, Erdos added
Stevens said he would like to plant fruit trees on part of his land after it is cleaned up and use a lot of the land for pastureland and farmland.
Theisen said he supports environmental causes and has assisted as a county commissioner with watershed clean-up projects, mine reclamation projects and conservation easements that protect land in the county. He said that some environmental activists may disagree with his push for new mines in Athens County, but he believes new mines will benefit the environment and the people of the county.
“Coal mines are absolutely good for the county,” Theisen declared. He said that new mines would create jobs for area residents, and added that all active coal mines pay a fee to the state to fund mine-reclamation projects.
He added that the strip mines would leave the trees on the tops of the hills and would involve digging into the sides of slopes to remove the coal.
“We want to cooperate with the environmentalists,” Theisen said. “We are as interested in clean water, clean air as they are.”
Theisen said he supports new energy sources such as solar and wind power, but said that not enough energy can be produced through those methods yet and that coal is still needed. The need is great, he added, so it makes sense to mine the coal from Athens County, which has so much and where the mines can help people.
Fluharty said he has land that is nearly 1,100 feet in elevation on his property and would like to also create wind power there. He does not think it is feasible yet, however, noting that coal is needed to create energy.
Theisen also is not concerned about any environmental problems caused by burning coal, and said he has his doubts about global warming. The earth has gone through heating and cooling stages over millions of years, and there were no power plants causing the heating or cooling in the past, he said.
Many scientists and environmental activists, though, say that the burning of coal is adding to the global warming and climate problems., and also say that this is much different than the heating and cooling of the earth in the past.
LOCAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS are leery of any new coal mines and say that more coal will just hurt the environment.
Lorraine McCosker of the local chapter of the Ohio Sierra Club, said Saturday that the organization opposes all strip/surface mining and longwall deep mining.
“We really think that our energies right now should be placed in renewable energy sources,” McCosker said.
Placing money into solar- and wind-power technologies will produce more power, be better for the environment and create new jobs in this field, she said. Burning more coal will hurt the atmosphere and cause numerous problems with water and the environment, she added.
McCosker questions how any new mine would help the environment, and said the fact that the state supports new mines does not mean they are good for region.
“The state benefits from mining coal because they get money from the permits,” McCosker said. Any coal that is removed from the ground is not “clean coal,” she added.
“It’s only clean in the ground,” McCosker said.
The fact that the land in the county has been scarred once by coal mines shows that the state previously did not do enough to protect the environment and the people, she said. She questions if the state will really do enough to protect the environment now.
McCosker also questioned why Theisen, an elected county official, is actively working on new coal mines.
“Bill Theisen represents the county…. and he shouldn’t be making money this way,” she said. She questioned how many jobs a new mine would really create and pointed out that the coal mine in Glouster only created a few new jobs, as most of the jobs were taken by employees of a mining company from outside of the region.
She also said she believes, though, that were will be a rush for new mining in southern Ohio in the next few years, and she worries about the possible damages.
Mary Beth Lohse, who lives in Meigs County and is on the Ohio Sierra Club’s Coal Committee, questions how exactly the land will be restored when the mine is finished. Coal-mining regulations are better now than they were in the past, but she would still want to see details about reclamation work for any new mines in the region, Lohse said.
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