Opinion ID: 501787
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Cumulative Hydrologic Assessment--What is Anticipated Mining?

Text: 348 In order to promote better planning, Congress required regulatory agencies to consider all anticipated mining within a given area each time a permit was to be issued. SMCRA Sec. 510(b)(3); H.R.REP. NO. 218, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. 113 (1977), reprinted in U.S.CODE CONG. & ADMIN.NEWS 593, 646. That way regulators could require the operators to implement hydrologic safeguards now, to make allowances for mining expected in the future. The planning requirement was implemented by requiring permit applications to include 349 a determination of the probable hydrologic consequences of the mining and reclamation operations, both on and off the mine site, with respect to the hydrologic regime, quantity and quality of water in surface and ground water systems including the dissolved and suspended solids under seasonal flow conditions and the collection of sufficient data for the mine site and surrounding areas so that an assessment can be made by the regulatory authority of the probable cumulative impacts of all anticipated mining in the area upon the hydrology of the area and particularly upon water availability. 350 SMCRA Sec. 507(b)(11). No permit can be approved unless the assessment of the probable cumulative impact of all anticipated mining in the area on the hydrologic balance specified in Sec. 507(b) has been made by the regulatory authority and the proposed operation thereof has been designed to prevent material damage to hydrologic balance outside the permit area. SMCRA Sec. 510(b)(3). 351 Secretary Watt promulgated regulations defining anticipated mining to mean: 352 at a minimum, the entire projected lives through bond releases of: (a) the proposed operation, (b) all existing operations, (c) any operation for which a permit application has been submitted to the regulatory authority, and (d) all operations required to meet diligent development requirements for leased Federal coal for which there is actual mine development information available. 353 30 C.F.R. Sec. 701.5. NWF challenged parts (c) and (d) of the definition, arguing that they impermissibly limited the scope of the cumulative hydrologic assessment by restricting the inquiry to those mines for which data was available. 100 Specifically, NWF alleged that such a limitation contradicted the provisos of Sec. 507(b)(11) that no permits issue until hydrologic information is available and incorporated into the application: 354 [The cumulative hydrologic impact] determination shall not be required until such time as hydrologic information on the general area prior to mining is made available from an appropriate Federal or State agency: Provided further, That the permit shall not be approved until such information is available and is incorporated into the application. 355 SMCRA Sec. 507(b)(11). The district court deferred to the Secretary's expertise on technical matters, finding that the narrow definition of anticipated mining represented a thoughtful response to concerns raised in the administrative record. PSMRL II (Round III), 620 F.Supp. at 1532. 356 As part of the permitting process, Congress required that the cumulative hydrologic effect of current and anticipated mining be taken into account. SMCRA Sec. 510(b)(3). The goal of such a requirement is more rational planning at earlier stages. 357 Current experience ... clearly shows that where operators have carried out adequate planning and engineering, they have been able to identify ways of limiting environmental impacts to the mine site. 358 S.REP. NO. 128 at 113. If regulatory authorities, in deciding whether to grant a permit and what kind of hydrologic safeguards to require, were only to consider existing mines and the specific operation being applied for, a less than optimal allocation of permits would result. Those who applied for permits later might have to be turned down, because earlier mines were not required to incorporate hydrologic safeguards that would have made it possible to allow more coal to be mined from that area. Alternatively, hydrologic protection standards would have to be lowered to allow more mines to operate in a given area, damaging the environment. Both options would be predictable, yet undesirable, consequences of regulatory shortsightedness. 359 The Secretary's decision to exclude from the definition of anticipated mining lands for which some steps may have been taken toward eventual mining, but in which no permit had yet been applied for, constitutes quintessential line-drawing. At some point between the time that a potential mine site is merely a gleam in an operator's eyes and the time when commercial coal is finally extracted from the mine, that site must be considered anticipated mining. But precisely where that line should be drawn requires expert administrative judgment about the way in which hydrologic assessments may be carried out. The Secretary, after review of comments submitted in response to a broader proposed definition, issued the final rule quoted above, and explained that he wanted to avoid the difficulty of requiring data about hypothetical mines which might render the regulator's assessments speculative and meaningless. 48 FED.REG. 43958-59 (1983). 360 Similarly, the Secretary determined that it is highly speculative whether lands under federal coal leases, even those subject to diligent development requirements, will ever actually be mined. There is no legal requirement that lessees mine the land; the only consequence of not mining within the ten-year due diligence period is termination of the lease, 43 C.F.R. Sec. 3483.2(a). Thus, the decision whether to mine in each case will be made by the leaseholder primarily in response to market conditions. The Secretary's regulation attempts to impose some limit on free-ranging speculation about which federal lands may or may not be mined, by defining as anticipated mining only those federal coal lands for which there is actual mine development information available. 361 Essentially, the Secretary's decision represents a basic policy trade-off between holding up or denying current mining permit applications until additional data about possible future mining in the area is generated, and risking the possibility that future mining in that same area may be delayed or precluded because the full extent of mining activity was not fully anticipated and proper hydrologic safeguards were not required. 101 Absent the expression of clear Congressional intent to the contrary, there is no basis for judicial second-guessing. See State Farm, 463 U.S. at 43, 103 S.Ct. at 2867 (1983). 362