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No time to waste averting another coal mine cleanup crisis

Regulators are ignoring a growing crisis unfolding in modern mine reclamation. Coal companies are often failing to complete timely reclamation, and safeguards to ensure mine cleanup are failing. Communities are already seeing a new, more devastating wave of abandoned mines — a problem that will get worse without action.

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Mine Cleanup Concerns Grow As Industry Declines

This aerial satellite photo looks down on a fissured earthen dam.

The decline of the coal industry is exacerbating failures of the current federal system to ensure that mines are cleaned up.

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How the Coal Mine Cleanup System is Failing

A desolate patch of disturbed ground sits as a result of an abandoned surface mine.

The bankruptcy of coal company Blackjewel has exposed many flaws in the current mine cleanup system.

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Blackjewel’s Catastrophic Bankruptcy and the Collapse of the Mine Cleanup System

Revelation Surface Mine

Blackjewel’s bankruptcy demonstrates how the mine cleanup system is coming undone — and how nearby residents bear the burden when coal companies fail to repair their damage.

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Online tool helps track status of mine ownership in aftermath of Blackjewel bankruptcy

The fate of thousands of acres of mines requiring tens of millions of dollars of reclamation was thrown into doubt when Blackjewel, Revelation Energy and affiliated mining operations filed for bankruptcy in July 2019.

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New tool helps track large number of mine permits set to be voided in Blackjewel bankruptcy

mountaintop removal coal mine

Appalachian Voices has created a web page designed to help concerned residents, reporters and regulators track the status of mines caught up in the Blackjewel bankruptcy where the permits will become void once the Blackjewel companies cease to exist at the end of the year.

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Blackjewel mine creates emergency road hazard in Russell County, VA

debris from former mine access road

Heavy rains caused debris from an inactive coal mine to block portions of VA State Route 632 in late August — an event that might become all too common with climate change-fueled rainfall likely to intensify.

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Bankruptcy Proposal Would Dodge Mine Cleanup Laws

As the Blackjewel bankruptcy continues, the responsibility to reclaim mine sites and workers’ compensation for past medical bills are still major issues.

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Company’s bankruptcy makes it harder for residents to address problems with nearby mines

People living near a pair of Virginia mountaintop removal coal mines have long complained about blasting and dust. Now, the company’s bankruptcy makes it even harder for nearby residents to get relief.

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Virginia regulators poised to grant mining permits to questionable company

As companies go bankrupt, they tend to pass off their mine mining permits — and the responsibility to reclaim them — to increasingly questionable entities. This is currently unfolding in Southwest Virginia, if the state mining agency allows it.

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