Remember when part of I-80 collapsed earlier this year? It was due to an abandoned mine over which the highway had been built. Area residents were fortunate that the sinkhole didn’t occur at their homes. Unregulated and unmonitored active mining can also cause disastrous results, as in Alabama, where the state government has decided to end monitoring of longwall mining, common in the state’s coalfields. I’ll bet you didn’t even know that Alabama mined coal.
The problem is methane, which escapes from the mine and can cause explosions, such as occurred in Oak Grove, a town of about 600, 52 miles southeast of Birmingham, in March 2024. A house collapsed, caught on fire, and a man died. The state Surface Mining Commission (ASMC), after months of public pressure, agreed that mining companies had to monitor Methane, but under lobbying pressure from the companies, t has postponed implementation.
So, we may ask, where are the feds, charged under a 1977 law that calls for monitoring? Pushed, the federal agency in charge, OSMRE, finally emerged, but after the new regime took over, it basically disappeared. Nothing like lobbying money from companies to get state officials to declare there’s no imminent danger. Really now, what’s the loss of life compared to corporate profit? Obviously, nothing.
Prayer for the Day
How long, O God, will corporate interests rule,
For they care not for the lives of people;
How long, O Lord, will we be subject to such power,
Buying influence in the halls of government?
Grant, O Holy One, that we make your justice rule,
The justice that gives to us, your children, true life.
In the name of the One who confronted power,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
There are still hundreds of people at risk in the areas underlying this mine, and they’re all at risk of having something similar happen to them,
Jack Spadaro, former mining safety engineer with OSRME
Now Alabama mines have been given a pass by the ASMC and can delay indefinitely the enhanced subsidence and methane monitoring requirements that OSMRE imposed to safeguard the public from similar harm.
Eva Dillard, attorney with Black Warrior Riverkeeper, near Oak Grove
Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels;
Because of their many transgressions, cast them out,
For they have rebelled against you.
Psalm 5: 10