W.M. Griffice died from injuries suffered in the explosion of his home above the Oak Grove mine in Alabama. (Courtesy of the Alabama Fire Marshal’s Office)
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here.
OAK GROVE —Lisa Lindsay was surprised.
For months, she had waited for federal authorities to do something—anything—to mitigate the risks of the longwall coal mine expanding beneath her home. Those risks became all too tangible in March when Lindsay felt the shockwaves of an explosion surge through her body.
The blast she felt had leveled her neighbor’s home, leaving a grandfather and his grandson in critical condition. W.M. Griffice would later die from his injuries. A lawsuit filed by his family blames the release of methane gas from Oak Grove Mine for his death.
But since that explosion, Lindsay has lived in constant fear, worried that state and federal officials responsible for regulating mining have largely ignored her complaints about the risks she’s still facing—risks that she believes could leave her family in the same position as the Griffices.
On Wednesday, the surprise came. Federal inspectors, accompanied by state regulators and a lawyer representing the mine company, showed up at Lindsay’s home to conduct an inspection. An individual familiar with the details of the regulators’ visit confirmed that agency staffers also visited the mine itself, located in rural Alabama west of Birmingham, and the Griffice property—the site of the March explosion.
The inspection came just three days after the publication of an Inside Climate News investigation into the delayed response of federal regulators in mitigating risks associated with methane escape at Oak Grove and other “gassy” mines across the country. Representatives of Oak Grove Mine did not respond to a request for comment. The mine’s lawyers have denied responsibility for the home explosion and Griffice’s death.
A spokesperson for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement confirmed Thursday that agency staffers were on the ground to ensure compliance with federal laws and regulations.
“Inspectors are obtaining additional relevant information about onsite conditions and operations at the Oak Grove Mine—and the company’s compliance with its permit, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA), and federal regulations—to determine what, if any, oversight or enforcement actions are necessary,” an agency spokesperson wrote in an email. “If it is determined that the mining operation is creating an imminent danger to the public, OSMRE can immediately issue a cessation of mining operations order. OSMRE will take any appropriate action and work with [the Alabama Surface Mining Commission] to address identified problems to ensure the health and safety of the community surrounding Oak Grove Mine.”
It remains unclear how exactly the federal agency will go about determining whether there is an imminent danger from methane migration in the community from the mine.
OSMRE declined to answer a question about how many other sites it planned to visit as part of its investigation, or whether it took any methane measurements at or in wells at the Griffice property. Several other residents in the area have said they, too, worry their homes might be at risk. The Oak Grove Mine is considered one of the gassiest in the country.
Explosive levels of methane are occasionally a problem near or in homes, wells and other structures atop coal mines, according to a 2001 technical guidance document from OSMRE. “The methane can be generated or liberated from active or abandoned underground mining that is occurring or has occurred underneath or adjacent to these structures,” the document says.
Kathy Love, director of the Alabama Surface Mining Commission, the state regulator with the primary authority to regulate surface impacts from underground mining activity in the state, confirmed that ASMC’s regulatory staffers were on site for the federal inspection but that “there is not other information to be shared at this time.”
OSMRE inspectors spent just over 20 minutes at Lindsay’s home, she said, briefly asking questions and observing the cracks in her home’s foundations—signs of the subsidence caused by the expanding mine below.
The longwall method of mining involves a large machine shearing coal to be removed from the mine, releasing methane gas and leaving vast underground caverns that collapse once mining has moved on. That collapse, experts say, causes subsidence, or the sinking of the land above, a process that often damages surface structures like the Lindsay home.
Fissures in the land above the mined area can also provide a path of escape for the methane released during mining. It’s that escaping methane that Griffice’s family claims was the cause of the explosion that left their loved one dead.
For her part, Lindsay is skeptical that any good will come from Wednesday’s inspection, which she called “a dog and pony show.”
Federal regulators have had months to address what she believes is an imminent threat to residents, she said. Only now, after the former head of the agency urged decisive action, is OSMRE putting boots on the ground in the Oak Grove community in a way Lindsay believes they should have in March.
An individual familiar with regulators’ visit confirmed that OSMRE officials took methane measurements at least one well located on the Griffice property.
Prior to the home explosion in March, mine officials had confirmed the presence of methane in a water well on the Griffice property and paid for the well to be plugged, according to court documents. Experts have told ICN that such wells should be vented, not plugged, because of the risks caused by methane finding new paths to the surface, such as through cracks created by subsidence.
Inside Climate News has filed records requests for any methane readings taken on site by federal regulators. An inspection report stemming from Wednesday’s visit should be forthcoming, a federal records officer said Thursday.
For Lindsay and other residents, help can’t come soon enough. Every day, Lindsay said she worries that methane may make its way into her home. That, Lindsay said, is what keeps her up at night.
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