Coal mine plan halted near Peoria

State agency admits it misinterpreted rule to benefit coal projects

ENVIRONMENT | Patrick Yeagle

A community group near Peoria defeated a coal mine project last week, and its victory could have far-reaching effects for coal projects around the state.

That’s because the group discovered that the Illinois Department of Natural Resources has willingly ignored part of a regulatory definition for more than three decades when approving mining permits.

On Jan. 20, Canton Area Citizens for Environmental Issues (CACEI) claimed victory in an eight-year battle to prevent Capital Resources Development Company from creating a coal strip mine outside Canton, which is about 20 miles southwest of Peoria and about 55 miles northwest of Springfield.

Capital Resources Development Company is a subsidiary of the Springfield Coal Company, which has a record of more than 600 permit violations spanning several years at its Industry Mine near Macomb. The company voluntarily asked the Department of Natural Resources to terminate its permit for the proposed Canton mine, signaling the end of the conflict. The Springfield Coal Company did not return calls seeking comment.

CACEI opposed the strip mine in part because of the potential for mine waste to wind up in Canton Lake, the city’s main drinking water supply.

“The strip mine would have destroyed much of the natural drainage and been harmful to the environment, the watershed and to the people in the community,” said CACEI leader Brenda Dilts.

CACEI and the Illinois Sierra Club won an appeal over part of the mine’s permit in 2013, gaining protection for one of six streams near the proposed mine site which feed into Canton Lake. The groups then filed a lawsuit in the Fulton County Circuit Court to protect the remaining five streams. Shortly before that case was to be heard, Capital Resources Development Company voluntarily withdrew its plans for the mine.

The victory for CACEI and the Illinois Sierra Club could affect how future mine proposals are evaluated by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. During a permit hearing in 2012, a geologist working for DNR explained that since 1982, the agency hasn’t used part of a definition of “intermittent streams” when determining whether a proposed coal mine would affect those streams.

Peoria attorney David Wentworth, who represented CACEI in the case, says under DNR regulations, an intermittent stream is one that either drains a watershed of more than one square mile or accepts water from surface and ground sources. Wentworth says DNR admitted it doesn’t use the second part of that definition, allowing many streams to be classified as “ephemeral.” An ephemeral stream is more akin to a drainage ditch and doesn’t require the same buffer zone during mining or remediation afterward as an intermittent stream.

“Definitions matter, because how a stream is classified equals how much protection it is afforded,” Wentworth said.

By ignoring part of the definition for 30 years, many potential intermittent streams were classified as ephemeral and thus deemed not worthy of protection, Wentworth said. That significantly lowered the hurdle that coal mine projects had to clear to gain a permit, he said.

Chris Young, a spokesman for DNR, said the agency only used the first part of the definition because it was not subjective.

He said variances in water tables between seasons and different years can complicate the classification of a stream. Still, he said the agency acknowledges that a DNR hearing officer ordered both pieces of the definition to be used, and DNR will comply in the future.

Wentworth says he plans to hold the agency accountable for changing its “unwritten rule” and classifying streams according to the whole definition. He says DNR should at least post a memo to coal companies on its website announcing the change.

“Capital Resources didn’t do anything fraudulent; they knew DNR didn’t require that information, so they didn’t gather it or submit it,” Wentworth said. “What I would like to see is DNR telling operators, ‘Hey, we require this stuff.’ I don’t think that’s too onerous.”

Contact Patrick Yeagle at [email protected].