Coulterville residents need your support!
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- What: Illinois EPA Public Hearing on proposed NPDES Water Discharge Permit for Peabody Coulterville Mining, L.L.C.’s Gateway Mine
- Where: Sparta City Council Chambers, Sparta City Hall, 114 West Jackson Street, Sparta, Illinois 62286
- When: Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 6:00 p.m.
- Background: Notice of Public Hearing, Draft NPDES Permit
- Contact: bperbix “at” prairierivers.org
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Peabody’s Gateway Mine in Coulterville is a large underground room-and-pillar mine that has been in operation since the 1980s, and a proposed expansion to the north could double coal production, with corresponding increases in coal refuse and slurry generated. Area residents are already concerned about the massive refuse disposal areas onsite – which also take on coal ash – and the negative impacts that air and water pollution from the site may have on local health and water quality.
The proposed north portal, situated adjacent to a new county nursing home, will require filling in streams and wetlands and will cause pollution to run into a tributary of Coulterville’s community drinking water reservoir. Neighbors near the existing facility are already impacted by fugitive coal dust and potential groundwater contamination. Additionally there are a number of old gob piles – coal refuse – nearby that are leaking and adding to the pollution burden on local streams.
We disagree with Illinois EPA’s decision to issue this permit because (1) there are existing pollution problems onsite that must be addressed first, (2) the new permit does not take into account the proposed expansion, (3) the permit does not guarantee that coal ash disposal at the site won’t cause air and water pollution and (4) the permit allows Gateway to pollute a freshwater lake onsite in order to dilute their waste.
Illinois EPA needs to hear from citizens in favor of protecting clean water. The public hearing is your chance to bring information to Illinois EPA’s attention and have your concerns heard. If you cannot attend the hearing you may still submit comments:
Written comments must be postmarked or e-mailed by midnight, July 8, 2011, when the hearing record closes. E-mails must specify Gateway Mine NPDES in the subject line and must be sent to: epa.publichearingcom@illinois.gov. The hearing record is a file containing the hearing transcript and written comments. Comments need not be notarized and should be sent to:
Hearing Officer Dean Studer
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
1021 North Grand Avenue East
P. O. Box 19276
Springfield, IL 62794-9276
Phone 217-558-8280
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Specific concerns:
- This permit should not be issued as it does not address entire scope of anticipated mine operations and impacts. Peabody Coulterville Mining, LLC has filed an application with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources-Office of Mines and Minerals to nearly double their mining operation. Coal brought to the surface will be transferred to the Gateway Mine’s Central Cleaning Plant for washing, leaving behind millions of gallons of slurry with discharges to area streams. This proposed water pollutioin permit does not acknowledge the expansion and only addresses a fraction of the overall anticipated impacts from Peabody’s Gateway Mine.
- The Gateway Mine should not be allowed to expand its operations until it has corrected its ongoing permit noncompliance and addresses degradation of groundwater and fugitive coal ash dust.
- Peabody Coulterville Mining’s Gateway Mine is not in compliance with their permit for discharges of total iron, settleable solids and total suspended solids to area streams. Groundwater quality standards are not being met at monitoring wells at the Gateway Mine site and fugitive dust from the coal ash and slurry ponds are contaminating adjacent land and water.
- Illinois EPA has not adequately assessed the impacts the mine will have on water quality and wildlife in Randolph County. The draft permit does not fully address pollution impacts from increased coal ash and lime sludge disposal, expanded mining or from the expansion of onsite slurry disposal. Further, the Illinois EPA has not fully assessed the conditions and existing uses of each of the streams that will be receiving pollution from the mine site.
- Peabody proposes to remove protections afforded under the Clean Water Act for an onsite lake. The draft permit instead proposes using the lake to dilute mining pollution before discharging to area streams.
