By Trent Moore
The Cullman Times
—
After being denied last month, the appeal deadline for a state permit to mine around Smith Lake has officially passed — effectively killing the request in its current form.
A permit from National Coal of Alabama to mine the Brushy Pond area of Smith Lake was officially denied by the Alabama Surface Mining Commission (ASMC) on June 23, and the company had until July 23 to appeal the decision.
An ASMC official confirmed this week that the deadline has passed with no appeal filed.
“That basically kills the permit, and we are very happy about that,” Smith Lake resident Eddie Hand said.
Hand, along with Smith Lake Environmental Preservation Committee Deb Berry and other lake property owners, spearheaded a grassroots campaign over the past year to stop the mining permit before it could be approved. Hundreds came out in opposition, with the last ASMC public hearing in April drawing approximately 200 attendees — with every public comment opposed to the mine.
“We had a bunch of people involved and a bunch of people did a lot of work to get this defeated,” Hand said. “I think a lot of times going into this, the cards were stacked against us, but we fought hard and pulled the ace in the hole out to win the battle.”
Even though the permit in question is essentially dead, Hand said advocates are still working to protect the lake from other issues that could arise in the future.
“Obviously, [National Coal of Alabama] could re-apply, so we are still going to push for the protection of the Smith Lake watershed, which includes doing some water testing and things like that,” he said. “We still have a lot of work to do.”
A message left at the National Coal of Alabama office seeking comment was not returned by deadline of this article.
Permit rejected
When rejecting the permit in late June, the ASMC cited omissions and unanswered questions about the permit as the main reason.
“The ASMC has determined the application is not complete and accurate and therefore must be denied,” ASMC Director Randall Johnson wrote in a letter attached to the ruling. “Based on these inadequacies and deficiencies the ASMC is not able to make the findings required to issue or approve this permit.”
Deficiencies in the engineering plan, operation plan, hydrology plan, blast plan and geology plan were among the incomplete areas noted. National Coal also lacked ADEM and US Army Corps of Engineers permits under the Clean Water Act to proceed with the mine. Incomplete maps, plus the absence of landowner comments in regards to post-mining land-use, were also absent from the permit.
Numerous letters were reportedly sent from ASMC officials to National Coal throughout the application process requesting the missing information, but the information was not provided.
“Sixty days have passed since the public informal conference held on April 22, 2010 with no response to these deficiencies,” Johnson wrote. “The permit application must be denied.”
* Trent Moore can be reached by e-mail at trentm@cullmantimes.com, or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 220.
