Advocacy group asks Interior Department to investigate connection of Kentucky flood deaths to surface coal mining

Screenshot of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth interactive map; streamflow is generally NW

Four inches of rain in a single hour. And the rain just kept on falling. Now, "A Kentucky advocacy group is calling on the federal government to launch an investigation into whether a legacy of surface coal mining in Eastern Kentucky exacerbated the catastrophic, deadly flooding the region faced last July," Liam Niemeyer reports for Kentucky Lantern. "Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, a progressive, grassroots organization known for lobbying on environmental issues, made public Monday a letter it was sending to federal surface-mine regulators. The letter not only requests an investigation into whether a relationship exists between surface coal mining and the severity of floods but also calls on federal officials to investigate a state agency charged with inspecting surface coal mines."

"At least 44 deaths have been attributed to the floods by the governor's office," reports Connor Griffin of the Louisville Courier Journal. The group's letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior, which includes the Office of Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement, "pointed out the proximity of 35 flood-related deaths, and one missing person, to land that has been used for mining. Even after reclamation, strip-mined land often cannot absorb flood runoff as it would naturally." 

KFTC accuses the Kentucky Department of Mine Reclamation and Enforcement "of failing to properly investigate complaints and requests for inspection, even after Eastern Kentuckians filed more than 100 of them with the regional office in Hazard after the floods hit." In response, the state Energy and Environment Cabinet "defended its record of mining-regulation enforcement, and cited its extensive work on the ground in the hours and days following the floods, and said the Division of Abandoned Mine Lands responded to 400 complaints of flooded areas in the months after," but said it "would welcome any DOI analysis of any surface mining contribution to the flooding."