At the current rate of about 30 projects a year, it will take more than 110 years to restore those sites. And there are plenty more sites that aren't on the state's priority list. Numbers like that make Cindy Rank, the mining chairwoman of the Highlands Conservancy, skeptical of the improvements the industry has made. She isn't sure the hills and streams will ever heal from the damage due to coal mining. She points to acid mine drainage produced by mines regulated by the 1977 law.
Some companies pump and treat the water, but blowouts sometimes occur.
If it does, we're supposed to have it cleaned up. The problems aren't limited to acid water, Rank said. She points to Pinnacle Creek, a tributary of the Guyandotte River, which is partly lined with blue plastic to keep water from seeping through the stream bed. That can happen when longwall or abandoned underground mines cause cracks in the rock, said Rick Buckley, the coordinator for the Office of Surface Mining's Appalachian Clean Streams program. The 9 percent of streams affected by acidic water doesn't include the 470 miles of streams covered by mountaintop removal valley fills in five Southern counties.