TU's CEO Wood testifies on abandoned mine cleanup

Editor's note: TU President and CEO Chris Wood testified Nov. 4 before the House Natural Resources Committee’s Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee on the need for Good Samaritan legislation that would allow third-party groups like TU to conduct clean-up work on abandoned mines without assuming liability for mine runoff. This is Wood's oral testimony before the committee. You can read his full testimony here. 

My name is Chris Wood.  I am the President and CEO of Trout Unlimited.  Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on this important issue.

I offer the following testimony on behalf of Trout Unlimited and its 155,000 members nationwide.  My testimony will focus on our views on HR 3843 and HR 3844, the cleanup of abandoned mine lands, and the need to facilitate abandoned mine cleanups by Good Samaritans—those who have no legal obligation to take on an abandoned mine cleanup, but do so in order to improve water quality.

These two bills represent promising steps.  Allow me to briefly summarize our position.

TU’s mission is to conserve, protect and restore North America’s trout and salmon fisheries and the watersheds they depend on.  In pursuit of this mission, we have restored streams and rivers damaged by abandoned mines from the Appalachian coal fields to the hardrock mining areas of the Rocky Mountain States, and my testimony is based upon these experiences.

The three million gallon spill in August of polluted water from the Gold King mine near Silverton Colorado drew national media attention.  Outside the media spotlight, thousands of smaller scale abandoned mines are polluting our rivers and streams every day.  The lesson from Gold King is not that an EPA contractor screwed up, it is that we need a much greater sense of urgency about addressing the problem of pollution from abandoned mines all over the nation.

Abandoned hard rock mines affect 40 percent of headwaters in the western United States.  The lack of dedicated funding sources and burdensome liability risk for would-be Good Samaritans stalls efforts to clean-up abandoned hardrock mines.

In the East, pollution from abandoned coal mines continues to damage over 10,000 miles of stream in Pennsylvania and West Virginia alone.

The East, however, should consider itself fortunate. A fee is assessed on the production of coal in the US.  Part of that funding supports an Abandoned Mineland Fund (AML Fund). Since 1977, more than $8 billion has been put to good use cleaning up, and making safe abandoned coal mines.  Unfortunately, no similar fund exists to clean up the legacy of hardrock mining, particularly in the western U.S.

We know how to clean up abandoned mines. In Pennsylvania, aided by state-based Good Samaritan policy, Trout Unlimited is working with State agencies, watershed groups and other partners, to conduct more than 250 abandoned coal mine pollution projects. 

In places such as Kerber Creek in Colorado, TU and its partners restored over 80 acres of mine tailings, improved 8 miles of stream, and installed over 340 instream structures that are now home to a reproducing wild trout population. 

We need two things to get the job done: First, a dedicated funding source is needed for cleaning up abandoned hard rock mines.  Second, local communities, private interests, and groups such as TU need protection from the liability associated with cleaning up abandoned mines.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Trout Unlimited appreciates the Good Samaritan provisions of HR 3843.  Importantly, Title III would provide a mechanism for coal abandoned mine projects to receive Good Samaritan protection as well as hard-rock clean-up projects.  Title III’s clean up standard is good, and its permit mechanism is on track.  We recommend deleting the NEPA limitation in Section 307. 

We appreciate the formal authorization of the BLM abandoned mine program in Title II, and the direction to BLM to identify Good Samaritan projects. We recommend applying that to the Forest Service, who also serves as an excellent partner for us on abandoned mine clean up

I hope it is clear to the Subcommittee, that even if a perfect Good Samaritan bill is approved and implemented, the work will not get done without adequate funding. 

Authorizing a private/public fundraising foundation is a promising concept. Our experience with such entities is that they work best when they represent the full array of communities and interests in AML work.  But passage of a bill like HR 3844 would in no way obviate the need for Congress to find an analog for western hardrock mining similar in size and scope to the coal AML program—a program that itself, needs to be reauthorized. 

We stand ready to work with you to get a bill introduced and on a track to move through Congress so that affected communities around the country will again have clean, fishable waters.