WPCAMR 

Western PA Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation

Quarterly Meeting Minutes 

February 27, 2007

Eat’N’Park, Indiana, PA

 

In attendance:

Bob Eppley (President)
LeeRoy Vatter, Indiana CD
Bruce Golden (Staff)
Jim Panaro (Secretary)
Andy McAllister (Staff)
Jeff Gerard (Staff)
Stefanie Chitester (Staff)
Ron Horansky, DEP Greensburg
Jim Eckenrode, Blair CD
Eric Cavazza, DEP-BAMR
Dave Steele, So. Alleghenies RC&D
Amber Siar, Jefferson CD
Rob Cronauer, Westmoreland CD
Dave Minnear, Kimball & Assoc.
Andy Patterson, Huntingdon CD
Heather Fowler, Fayette CD

Curt Pieper, DEP, MRM
Dennis Beck, Cambria CD
Malcolm Crittenden, DEP
Pam Milavec, DEP-BAMR
Matt Shawley, So. Alleghenies Conservancy
Tom Grote, Stream Restoration Inc.
Tom Strittmotte, CCCRA
Tom Clark, SRBC
Bernie Hoffnar, Bedford CD
Bill Doney, Westmoreland CD
Greg Phillips, Westmoreland CD
Nick Pinizzoto, WPC
Lance Bowes, Venango CD
David Strong, CAC/MRAB/EQB
John Dawes, WPWP

 

 

WPCAMR Business Meeting:
Meeting chaired by Dr. Bob Eppley and called to order at 10:10am.

Dr. Eppley congratulated WPCAMR staff on the hard work and successes with Title IV re-authorization.

Introductions of all present.

Secretary’s Report (Mr. Panaro):
Review of past meeting minutes.  Request from Dr. Hoffnar to amend the minutes by adding a missing name, Ernie Fuller  from Broad Top Twp, Bedford County, to the list of attendees.
Motion (Hoffnar/Vatter) to accept the minutes once amended.  Passed.

Treasurer’s Report (Mr. Phillips):
Mr. Phillips read the treasurer’s report.  Dr. Hoffnar asked about the money remaining in the monitoring grant.  Mr. Golden and Mr. Gerard explained the monitoring support program (the FACTS grant program).
Motion (Vatter/Patterson) to accept the treasurers report.  Passed.

President’s Report (Dr. Eppley)
Dr. Eppley said that his opening comment is his report.
Dr. Hoffnar made the comment that he appreciates Dr. Eppley’s leadership and thanked him.

Regional Coordinator’s report (Mr. Golden):
Mr. Golden began his report with details surrounding the SMCRA Title IV campaign and reauthorization then continued stating that Secretary McGinty was informed of WPCAMRs OM&R concerns through the letter that Dr. Eppley sent.  Dr. Eppley read Sec. McGinty’s reply to his letter and asked for comments.  Dr. Hoffnar commented that he was disappointed that the letter didn’t address the specific concerns (eg. Levels of responsibility on OM&R) regarding the OM&R problem, specifically the second point in Dr. Eppley’s original letter.  Since Dr. Hoffnar felt as Sec. McGinty did not address this point in her response letter, he suggested once again that the officers meet directly with McGinty regarding this point.
Mr.Golden continued his report with WPCAMR’s move to GreenForge and then went on to talk about the Quick Response program.  Since this grant is on a reimbursement basis with  no administrative funding, funds get stretched and WPCAMR needs to look at ways to improve cash flow.  Amount of working capitol with this particular program is an issue.  Ms. Milavec said that if WPCAMR decides to apply for a new Growing Greener grant for another quick response grant, those funds can now be used to pay interest on bridge loans.  Discussion ensued to clarify what “Bridge Loans” are.  Mr. Steele recommended that WPCAMR look into requesting the bank donate the interest.  Mr. Golden continued with his report.  Dr. Eppley said that Brent Means from OSM thinks WPCAMR should be commended on the AMP forum and may contribute to the postings in the future. See Regional Coordinator’s report for additional details.

Watershed Coordinator’s report (Mr. McAllister):
See report for details.  Mr. Steele encourages WPCAMR to encourage Mr. McAllister to continue to attend the RC&D meetings.

OSM/VISTA report (Mr. Gerard):
See report for details. 

Dr. Hoffnar said that requiring an OM&R plan for the FACTS grant is good and that perhaps acting as a mentor to groups that don’t have OM&R plans created yet.  Mr. Grote reiterated that SRI still has the TAG grant to create OM&R plans until the end of March.  Dr. Eppley commented that OM&R was never emphasized in the past.  Dr. Hoffnar suggested that OM&R plans should be a key part of the watershed planning process.

OSM/VISTA report (Ms. Chitester):
Ms. Chitester explained her duties working for both WPCAMR and the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team (ACCWT).  She is currently working with the Turtle Creek group and the EASI program but needs two more interested watersheds to be
involved in her program.  Ms. Chitester asked that if anyone knows of two more watershed groups that need sustainability assistance to contact her.  No written report.

Mr. Clark asked about the ACCWT and Mr. Golden explained.  Also, Mr. Golden asked if any of the board was interested in attended an ACCWT training in West Virginia in April to please contact him.

NEW BUSINESS

Reauthorization of SMCRA and Title IV (Mr. Golden and Mr. McAllister)
At approximately 11:10, Mr. Golden and Mr. McAllister began the presentation about the reauthorized Title IV and started off with chapter one of the draft educational video that they produced.  Two other chapters will be completed in the weeks ahead and will be folded into the production which will be distributed in DVD form and available as streaming video on the website.  These educational materials are being created in an effort to educate the public in advance of PA DEPs public roundtables to be held sometime in the near future.  Mr. Strong requested a copy of the production to take to CAC for this coming month and for the next MRAB.

Mr. Golden asked Mr. Dawes to brief the attendees on the AML campaign’s success in getting Title IV reauthorized.  Mr. Dawes spoke briefly of the history of the AML campaign in Pennsylvania and thanked the Conservation Districts and other organizations for their work and said that members of the AML campaign including WPCAMR staff will be traveling to Harrisburg to thank the Governor for his early support with the efforts to get Title IV amended.

Mr. Golden explained that the discussion of Title IV will resume after the reports from the attendees and the rest of the regular agenda.

Conservation District/Agency/Watershed Association reports (All present):
Those in attendance reported on current and future activities within their respective organizations. 

Lunch

Consideration of Administrative Help (Mr. Golden)
Mr. Golden explained the need for a part time administrative assistant to work for the WPCAMR office for a couple of hours per week.  Mr. Phillips also explained how WPCAMR used to have administrative help from the Westmoreland Conservation District but not anymore and that having assistance will help Mr. Golden take care of more pressing work. 

Motion (Doney/Bowes) to hire a part-time person to help with administrative duties at the WPCAMR office.  Passed.

Growing Greener Submissions for 2007 Round (Mr. Golden)

  1. Apply for baseline 319 funding for WPCAMR for this round of Growing Greener
  2. Apply for an extension of the quick response program

Motion (Hoffnar/Panaro) to apply for 319 baseline funding for WPCAMR for the 2007 round of Growing Greener.  Passed.

Ms. Milavec said that if you accept GGII funding, it would increase your options for funding the quick response program.  Mr. Eckenrode mentioned that a way to get some assistance with the funding, then perhaps WPCAMR can request match from the organizations that use the quick response program.  Mr. Panaro asked if WPCAMR has a contract with the subs that do the work.  Mr. Golden said that DEP makes the choice of who’s funded and approves the funding, all WPCAMR does is write the check and do some paperwork in between.  Mr. Panaro also asked if WPCAMR is responsible or liable with the quick response program if there’s a problem between the recipient of the funds and the contractor hired to do the repair.  Ms. Milavec said the subcontractors are working for the conservation district or whoever hires the sub.  Mr. Panaro said that WPCAMR is writing the check so it needs to be clarified who is ultimately responsible.  Dr. Eppley wondered who to go to for clarification on this matter and said that WPCAMR will need guidance from DEP on the matter.  Mr. Golden asked if we should require a percentage in-kind from the recipient now.  Drs. Hoffnar and Eppley said not now. Mr. Phillips asked Mr. Golden what to ask for in this round of Growing Greener and Mr. Golden suggested half a million dollars.  Mr. Golden said a million dollars could easily be spent in the three year timeframe of the grant. 

Motion (Hoffnar/Eckenrode) for WPCAMR to apply for the quick response Growing Greener grant, that includes Growing Greener II as a possible source, in the amount of $600,000.  Passed.

Consideration of Pro Bono attorney (Dr. Eppley)
Dr. Eppley has located an attorney, Bob Ging, that will provide Pro Bono work for WPCAMR for approximately 2-3 hours per month to advise WPCAMR on any questions, then will charge for any time required beyond that.  Attorney Ging requires a formal letter from WPCAMR requesting Pro Bono assistance.

Motion (Hoffnar/Phillips) to retain Robert Ging, Jr., Esquire as our Pro Bono advisory attorney.  Passed.

Dr. Eppley said that he will write the letter and contact the attorney.

2007 WPCAMR Meeting Schedule (Mr. Golden)
The following dates were suggested for the remaining 2007 WPCAMR quarterly meetings.  Venues and specific dates to be finalized.  Once finalized, Bruce will email everyone to notify.

May 15th or 17th  at the DEP Ebensburg office if available. We will try for the 15th first.  No objections.

August  16th  at the Beaver County CD near Aliquippa if available.  No objections.


Reauthorization of SMCRA and Title IV continued

Mr. Golden explained the handouts.  He made the folllowing points in regard to the mechanics of the Title IV legislation:

  • Once PA becomes "certified" (all P1 & P2 projects complete), annual grants will all but cease.
  • As more of the "set-aside" provision is exercised, less money will go to P1 & P2 projects annually, which will tend to delay certification.
  • A delay in certification may be viewed as a very good thing because it will allow PA to participate in the grants program for additional years, increasing the total dollars coming to PA.
  • He further stated that the projections for funding of states go to year 2022, the last year funds will be paid via the coal production fee.  However, because the balance of the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund will likely be in the $2 billion range, grants to "non-certified" states would likely continue for at least another 3 to 5 years. If PA certifies as early as possible, it would miss out on this funding opportunity. 
  • He suggested that PA should be in no hurry to certify, and by taking a goodly portion of the maximum 30% set-aside, the delay in certification would naturally happen with the benefits of having signifacantly more money for AMD projects.

Dr. Hoffnar said that it is clear to him that the DEP is looking for guidance from the AMR community as to the amount to set aside.  Ms. Milavec said that there has been no decisions yet from the state as to set aside amount. Mr. Cavazza said that the department is looking for input.  There was a question from the attendees as to when the public meetings will be.   Mr. Pieper said that there have been no decisions yet as to the dates for the public meetings and that the Department is looking for input. 

Mr. Cavazza said that the state is looking for guidance from OSM as to whether set aside funds can be used for P1 and P2s but they’ve not received an official response from OSM yet.  Mr. Golden said that OSM is looking for a formal question from Pennsylvania to that effect for its rulemaking process. 

Mr. Dawes reiterated that there is no time limit to use the set aside money and it can earn interest.  Mr. Golden said there are time limits for spending the P1 and P2 funds.  Mr. Golden presented his Excel tool to show visually, how the amounts for P1s and 2s change based on how much set aside is requested, etc. 

Dr. Hoffnar said that in the past, BAMR historically (~15 years ago) had kept local groups away from reclamation activities and the AMR community raised enough hell to say you can’t do that.  He said that here is an opportunity for BAMR to do the same thing again.  Dr. Hoffnar stated that if BAMR wants to put all the money on P1 and 2s then they have control over that, they have less control over the water projects.  He said that water projects are much more reliant on local action and it’s different and just wanted to make that point.  Mr. Cavazza said that for the department has worked very hard to create a network of watershed organizations, to walk away from them and water reclamation would be a disservice to the watershed community it’s trying to encourage. Mr. Cavazza reminded the group about the first part of the video (the PA constitution) that the state has an obligation to provide for clean water and if the watershed groups all went away responsibility would all fall back on the department.  Mr. Cavazza said it would be short-sighted for the department to say if nobody shows up at the meetings we will take all the money for P1s and 2s.  Mr. Pieper said there has been no inkling that the department would switch away from the water quality improvement projects and that watershed organizations are a major part of this work.  He said that a lot of input is going to have to happen before we know how all of this is going to work out and it’ll take a lot of people all working together. 

Mr. Golden said until OSM goes through the rulemaking process for Title IV, we won’t know what will happen.  Mr. Golden said that to understand how Title IV works isn’t necessarily intuitive and what WPCAR is trying to do is to promote understanding.  Mr. Pieper said we need the watershed associations’ help. 

Mr. Dawes said that the difference between this new program and ten years ago is that we have mandatory spending.  He said that PA and WV, by not becoming certified, really have an opportunity to get the most money out of this program.  Mr. Golden said we’re trying to provide tools for the roundtables to help folks make that decision as to what amount of set aside should be taken by the state.  Mr. Golden said that there could be a good possibility that the set aside money could be converted at some time in the future to address P1s and 2s if there is a need to do that, and at this point OSM appears to be very flexible on that issue. 

Dr. Hoffnar said there are other additional ways to deal with P1s and 2s such as remining, etc.  We need to recognize that there are other ways to augment the state’s approach to handle P1s and 2s.  There was a question from the group as to what are P1s versus P2s.  Mr. Cavazza said that there were a lot of P1s in just one area of Clearfield county.  Mr. Cavazza said that approximately 36 mine fires throughout the state account for about 45% of the inventory and went on to explain the evolution of the inventory from 1982 through present day.  He said that there was a discrepancy among many states as to what and how many priority sites they had.  He said that the OSM set up a federal inventory with their own rating system in response to that.  The current inventory list that people see is the OSM list, that’s the 1 Billion number, but Pennsylvania’s estimate of inventory cost is much higher. 

Mr. Cavazza said that to the states eyes, some of the Priority 1s on the federal list shouldn’t be there.  He said that the department has a system to grade the big batch of priority 2s but it could be improved and that watershed groups, etc could help with prioritizing by communicating local knowledge to the department.  He said that there has been no formal call for information from watershed groups to help with verifying the land-based problems at this time.  Mr. Golden said for the group to look at the first point in his “musings” list that the board was given regarding prioritization.

Dr. Hoffnar said that this is all good information to prepare for the roundtables and asked  how we do that?  He said that we need to prep people before the roundtables.  Mr. McAllister said that the other chapters in the video will touch of Mr. Golden’s Excel sheet and the monetary aspects we discussed to give a more complete picture.  Dr. Hoffnar asked who is going to get this information and who will present it?  It was suggested that Abandoned Mine Posts be used to disseminate this information.  Mr. Golden said that the Excel tool has been presented on Abandoned Mine Posts already.  Mr. Golden said it comes down to a matter of choice and that it’s a tradeoff as to where to put the funds.  He asked if we collectively want to make a stand on what that set aside figure should be.  Mr. Golden said we need to get information out to all the conservation districts so we can poll them on what that set aside should be.  Dr. Hoffnar suggested that, given our discussions so far, that the highest set aside is preferable to a lower one but we want to poll our members to get some expression from them before we make a recommendation regarding the set aside amount we recommend.

Dr. Hoffnar said that what we want is more input from members as to what our recommendation should be.  Discussion ensued as to the relatively short time frame to prepare for the public meetings.  Mr. Steele said that RC&Ds are a good forum to make this presentation but they only meet once per quarter. 

Mr. Golden asked Mr. Pieper if there’s a rush on the part of DEP to get these meetings started. Mr. Pieper said that the department needed to brief the legislators to get them up to speed and that process pushed the meetings back.  Mr. Golden said it would be nice to have some more time to do the education, otherwise things won’t be based on real information and an informed public while understanding that some of this is out of our control, like the rulemaking.  Mr. McAllister said in order to have valuable input at the public meetings, you need to have an informed public.  Mr. Golden said that it would be good to have this topic as an educational aspect of the AMR conference to help people make more informed decisions.  Dr. Hoffnar said that this perspective here is a good one for the legislators to hear and suggested that maybe WPCAMR can go to Harrisburg and invite the legislators to a presentation from WPCAMR and EPCAMR on the presentation/issue that we’ve seen today.  And that to particularly invite members from AMD areas. 
It was suggested by Mr. Steele that PACD has a capitol day, would this be a good issue to bring up at that time?  There was no agreement from the group as to bringing this issue to capitol day.

Mr. Golden talked about  OSM’s proposed budget (Budget justification for fiscal year 2008, the “Green Book” on your meeting materials) and the fact that the Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative is now zeroed out and will fall by the wayside.  He said that the Watershed Cooperative Agreement Program is listed for only about $1.5 Million annually (on page 53 of the green book).  Mr. Golden said we do have time to comment on that budget recommendation and hopes that WPCAMR will do so.  Also that OSM is looking for comments on section 415 rulemaking that they’re doing regarding remining incentives.  Mr. Golden finally said that on the group’s materials is something called “musings” which are his thoughts for possibilities for what to do in the future, just food for thought.  Dr. Hoffnar said that if you break down each year’s expected grant to figure out what the 30% would give each year , it might help understand the amounts too.  He said that the question is, are we ready to use this money? 

Mr. Golden asked the group to look at all of the information that’s given out and presented on WPCAMR ’s website for the meeting and that we all should be weighing in on the set aside question.  Mr. Panaro asked where the amounts came from on the graph.   Mr. Golden said those figures came from OSM.  Mr. Golden said that there a number of competing factors that explain why the proposed funding increases while the per ton fees go down.  Mr. Cavazza asked if, when educating, do we think there will be groups that wish to help the commonwealth understand what’s out there as far as land problems or pointing out P1s or P2s, etc.  Mr. Golden said WPCAMR staff would be very happy to facilitate that information transfer.

Dr. Eppley asked for additional questions.  Dr. Hoffnar asked if we want to make an official recommendation.  Dr. Eppley asked Mr. Pieper if the department would feel that WPCAMR is being presumptuous if we have a formal recommendation.  Mr. Pieper said that that communication doesn’t have to be formal.  Dr. Hoffnar asked if we can get cooperation from EPCAMR on this.  Mr. Golden said that he believes they may be pretty much in agreement with WPCAMR on this set aside subject but ultimately it’s a matter of their choice.  Dr. Hoffnar wishes to know how EPCAMR feels about this.

Motion to adjourn (Hoffnar)  Meeting adjourned at 15:10

 

Minutes taken and assembled by Andy McAllister.