photo by: Emma Delk

Northern Panhandle Conservation District supervisors Robert Luchetti Jr., left, and Eric Freeland discuss previous instances of flooding in Marshall County and how dams were able to mitigate the damages.

CAMERON — Northern Panhandle Conservation District officials are in discussions with American Consolidated Natural Resources regarding the company’s plan to perform longwall mining under three high-hazard dams near Cameron.

ACNR, previously Murray Energy, contacted the NPCD Board of Supervisors in March 2023 regarding its proposed plan to mine in the vicinity of and beneath three of the Upper Grave Creek Watershed Dams.

ACNR owns the mineral rights to the land on which the dams sit, while the NPCD owns and manages the dams. The land on which the dams were built was provided to the NPCD through an easement.

These dams are classified as Class 1 High Hazard Dams under the West Virginia Code of State Rules Series 47-34. The failure of a high-hazard dam may result in loss of life and major damage to property.

NPCD supervisors Robert Luchetti Jr. and Eric Freeland have been in negotiations with ACNR regarding the project since March. ACNR informed the NPCD that the mining will begin within the next two weeks.

ACNR officials have confirmed for NPCD supervisors that the mining will cause subsidence, which is the gradual sinking or caving in of land, at the dams. Officials said the anticipated subsidence will damage these structures, and the loss of these structures will increase the consequences of flooding for Cameron residents.

Luchetti and Freeland’s main concern regarding the mining is how the cost to repair the dams to federal standards will be covered, allowing the NPCD to obtain federal funding for recertification and rehabilitation of the dams.

The NPCD provided ACNR estimates developed by the geotechnical engineering firm D’Appolonia Engineering on the repairs necessary to bring the dams back into compliance with the federal standards they now meet.

The firm estimates the cost to repair each dam would be approximately $16 million, totaling approximately $48 million to repair all three dams.

According to Luchetti and Freeland, the NPCD’s repair cost estimate is higher than ACNR’s. ACNR declined the NPCD’s request to provide $16 million bonds for each dam the project will damage.

“We would like bonds for the dams so we would have money be available for us in the event something happens to ACNR,” Freeland said. “We would still have access to the money we need to fix the dam.”

ACNR informed the NPCD that the company is minimizing the risk of damage to the dams, the cost of repairing/replacing them and their value to the community.

ACNR’s mining operations will remove these dams from the federal inventory of dams, resulting in the loss of future federal funding for their recertification and rehabilitation. To re-enter the federal inventory of dams, the three dams damaged by the ACNR mining operation must be rehabilitated and restored to Natural Resources Conservation Service standards after the mining project.

Until the dams reach those standards, the state will bear the cost of biennial certification of the dams, which Luchetti and Freeland noted will “fall back on the taxpayer.” According to Freeland, the cost of recertifying the dams every other year is approximately $3,000.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service also offers a rehabilitation program for dams in the federal inventory, which covers the cost of significant repairs and rehabilitation.

“If any of the damaged dams would ever need significant repair or rehabilitation, we would not be able to apply for rehab under the NRCS program,” Luchetti noted. “We don’t know what the ACNR’s exact mining operation plan is, but it’s in our due diligence to make sure the mining is done safely, and the dams are repaired safely to a standard that will allow them to last for another 50 to 75 years.”

Another concern regarding the mining for Luchetti and Freeland is that, to their knowledge, mining under a Class 1 High Hazard dam is “unprecedented,” meaning no company before ACNR has mined under a high-risk dam.

“The dam is not going to settle equally (after the mining), and it’s going to develop cracks due to the subsidence,” Freeland said. “We’ve seen multiple pictures of dam failures in different parts of the country due to cracking, so the consensus is these dams will need to be entirely rebuilt to get up to what we call the gold standard of flood protection.”

Each of the dams is located 1-2 miles from Cameron. While the damage Cameron residents could incur if the mining substantially damages the dams is unknown, Lucetti noted the dams were erected specifically as a part of a system to protect Cameron from watershed during a high water event. He said without the three dams, “by definition,” the risk of flooding in Cameron “is greater.”

“We feel like if there’s an entity in place to provide oversight on this project, it’s us, and we just want to say we’re not trying to stop any mining or close any mine down,” Freeland said. “We just want to ensure that it’s done safely and then put back effectively long after the mining.”

Freeland noted that mining operations near recreational dams have damaged them beyond repair in the past, citing the Ryerson Station Dam in Greene County, Pennsylvania, as an example.

“When CONSOL Energy performed longwall mining on the Ryerson Dam, the subsidence reached the dam’s edge, where the dam was damaged to the point where it was beyond economical repair,” Freeland said. “The state of Pennsylvania didn’t have enough money to essentially replace this recreational dam, so the people of Pennsylvania lost that recreational resource.”

Lucetti and Freeland stressed that they do not want to stop the mining project and would not be able to do so in the first place, as ACNR applied for and received a permit to mine in the area 10 years ago.

“We want to do our due diligence in our elected positions to ensure the safety of these dams and that the mining doesn’t damage them too excessively,” Freeland said. “We need to ensure these mines get repaired, as even the mining companies’ documentation admits there will be subsidence.”

Luchetti added that West Virginia is an “energy state” with a large part of the economy and many jobs centered on energy industries such as coal and natural gas.

“We just have a dilemma where you have energy industry operations in the area, but we also don’t want Cameron to be destroyed by them,” Luchetti said. “We’re just trying to uphold our statutory responsibility as the steward of these structures.”

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection will hold a public meeting at 6:30 p.m. today at Cameron High School regarding the proposed certificate of approval related to the flood control dams in the Grave Creek watershed. ACNR must obtain WVDEP’s certificate of approval to make any repairs needed due to mining activity.

The COA also provides a legal measure by which the responsible party, Marshall County Coal Resources, is held accountable for any damages to the dams caused by the company’s actions.

The WVDEP will also have staff from its Division of Mining & Reclamation available to meet with residents after today’s meeting to answer general questions related to their concerns and collect contact information to follow up on these issues.

ACNR officials could not be reached for comment Monday regarding the proposed mining operation under the three Cameron dams.