Madison county opposes long wall mining

Earlier this week, the Madison county board passed a resolution opposing the expansion of destructive long wall mining methods into their county and calling on state and federal governments to protect agricultural lands from the practice. That's pretty impressive for a county where the coal industry has so much influence.

Here's the text of the resolution:

RESOLUTION OF THE MADISON COUNTY BOARD OPPOSING LONG WALL MINING IN MADISON COUNTY

WHEREAS, coal mining interests have been reviewing the suitability of lands located within Madison County, Illinois in order to place a long wall mine operation within the confines of Madison County, Illinois; and

WHEREAS, long wall mining has been found to have an adverse affect on the environment, particularly agriculturally sensitive lands;

WHEREAS, Madison County has adopted a comprehensive plan that heretofore places an emphasis on the protection of the natural resources and the environment of the County; and

WHEREAS, performance criteria, as utilized by both state and federal mining law address concerns in the areas of mine site conformance to the County's Comprehensive Land Use Plan, Conservation Lands Systems and other related conservation plans, prevention of water quality and quantity impacts, concurrent reclamation and visual impacts; and

WHEREAS, both state and federal law will be required to take into account consistency with local land use and development plans, which in this case is the Madison County Comprehensive Land Use Plan; and

WHEREAS, the typical legacy left behind from prior and existing mines may place undue costs and adverse impacts on the tax payers of Madison County with few local tax benefits, and is therefore unacceptable; and
WHEREAS, a recent study of the effects of Long Wall mining found that water quality impacts from long wall mines are consistently underestimated and therefore the mitigation is consistently inadequate; and

WHEREAS, water quality impacts to the Silver Creek Watershed and the water source for the communities of Highland, St. Jacob and Marine could be detrimental to rare riparian habitat along the creeks, the endangered species within the creeks, and the high quality water supply to the entire area; and

WHEREAS, environmental impacts associated with the deposition of dredge and fill materials on agricultural lands have been shown to be detrimental; and

WHEREAS, the practice of long wall mining and the associated subsidence typically has a serious effect on area geology, particularly on flat surface lands, and that remediation of the subsidence has proven to be detrimental to the land; and

WHEREAS, the information any Coal company has provided the County to date leaves many questions unanswered and is insufficient to determine if and how Madison County would be able to meet any environmental performance criteria outlined by the County to address the negative impacts associated with long wall mining.

NOW, THEREFORE, UPON MOTION DULY MADE, SECONDED AND CARRIED,
BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

1. The Madison County Board opposes the development of any long wall mining operation in Madison County.

2. Madison County will continue to actively comment on any future plans of operations submitted on any such mine, including during any formal review by the U.S. Department of the Interior per the National Environmental Policy Act and through the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Bureau of Mines.

3. The Madison County Board requests that both of State and Federal legislators take active roles in the curtailment of such mining operations that have an adverse effect on agricultural lands within Madison County.

Passed by the Madison County Board