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there's a certain pride in making sure
that the land is reclaimed properly
ensuring the environment is protected
while coal mining is underway is the
work of the mine land reclamation team
in fact their work starts long before
any ground is disturbed with the
permitting section we reviewed majority
of the administrative portions of the
permit and it includes acreages leases
bonds fees insurance depending on the
type of coal permit and location the
review process could take every section
within the mine land reclamation team
and also several other agencies coal
appears to be regulated a lot more
heavy-haul applications have the
twenty-one sections and 154 questions
but you're looking in the neighborhood
of most applications say a new permit
would come in with somewhere to
neighborhood of 500 to 600 attachments a
permitting section also reviews
revisions renewals and monitors bonding
once mining begins in addition to a coal
mining permit companies also have to get
a water permit our agency was given
delegated the authority to issue the
discharge permits just for coal mining
permits the water quality section also
monitors water coming from mine sites to
ensure it is up to standards to say that
your work is tapped out somebody next
door is the engineering section we have
a staff of engineers who perform various
tasks such as review of mining permits
providing technical assistance on
various issues and performing
engineering design for AML projects
you'll also find these engineers
providing their expertise on complaint
investigations the mapping section holds
a majority of the data associated with
permitted coal mines most mining
information is location-based so we'll
take information from the permits for
the mine sites and put them in a
geographic information system while coal
mines are their main focus this section
helps the entire agency with mapping
we've taken a lead over the years
the enterprise G is for the entire
departments of all the state it can be
brought together from other divisions
and shared in a bunch of different ways
it also hosts the agency's drone program
the drones are available to every
division and there are several pilots
within the department a team of 19 mine
land reclamation inspectors ensure
everything approved in the office is
executed on the ground right now I'm
relatively inspecting about 19
operations
it varies you know depending on the coal
market inspectors look for proper
drainage handle citizen complaints make
sure blasting is done within the
regulations and much more most of the
mines they inspect are not actively
mining coal even though mining is being
completed actual production part of the
mining is being completed we still have
to inspect those for five years
reclamation inspectors are also training
to do safety inspections on the surface
coal mines they currently visit each
month and they help in the abandoned
mine land program or the AML section
this group oversees the reclamation of
features left by coal mining that
happened before 1977 that's when the
surface mining control and reclamation
act or smack rrah was passed and
required reclamation AML is a federally
funded program and is paid for by
attacks on coal features are inventoried
there are more than three thousand and
then they are prioritized as to which
will become a project our program
mandates that we reclaim priority ones
and twos and those are issues those are
inventoried items that are causing
imminent harm to our citizens or to our
environment recently the AML program has
been involved in economic development
through the pilot program this federal
grant allows for the reclamation of any
historic feature for the purposes of
boosting the economy in Southwest
Virginia and Virginia does have one of
the most successful programs and we have
award-winning reclamation that's
recognized nationally but that's all
because of the fine folks that we have
working here at DMA and
and program we have the best the job of
Environmental Protection is a big one
and it takes several people to make it
happen the end result when they come out
here and they mine that we can put these
areas back to as good or better as they
were before