Buckingham Coal Company strip mined and is deep mining in North Athens County, marking the first time in a decade that coal mining has marred Athens County soil. The mine pollutes Sunday Creek and completely devastated Forest Creek that runs into Sunday Creek (pictured below. Sunday Creek flows into the Hocking River just upstream of where Athens and Ohio University gets its water supply (from wells recharged by the Hocking River). 

    Forest Creek, was among the highest quality streams left in Ohio. These photos show the crystal clear water and the high sinuosity, or curvatures of the stream that indicates its pristine nature. The report that follows details the environmental problems with this proposed mine.  The Lands Unsuitable Petition that would have set the area proposed to be mined off limits to mining was submitted to the ODMR in 1997, but they did not grant it.  Instead, mining destroyed it. 

    While an appeal filed by Hocking Voice did not succeed in stopping the mine, it did reduce pollution going into Sunday Creek by 300 percent.

Click on a photo to see what Forest Creek once looked like (now it is a giant pit going down hundreds of feet, the fill piled in the upper part of the valley.

State Route 13 serves as an entranceway to Wildcat Hollow, the most primitive area of the Athens unit of the Wayne National Forest, as well as an entrance to Burr Oak State Park and Trimble State Wildlife Area. This is a petition to declare certain areas between Trimble State Wildlife Area, The Wayne National Forest and Burr Oak State Park unsuitable for mining. These areas are critical to the economic health of the region through tourism, and as a wildlife corridor between the various natural areas that benefits the wildlife, hunters and tourists.
 

Ohio Revised Code section 1513.02 (B) authorizes Ohio^ts Chief of the Division of Reclamation to "designate as unsuitable for coal mining natural areas maintained on the~registry of natural areas of the department of natural resources...publicly owned or dedicated parks and other areas of unique and irreplaceable natural beauty or condition, or areas within specified distances of a cemetery or a public park. Such a designation may include land adjacent to the perimeters of such areas that may be necessary to protect their integrity."
 
 

Sunday Creek Flood Plain
 

The flood plain of Sunday Creek is unsuitable for mining because mining would irreparably harm the critical area needed for a healthy river ecosystem. As the floods this year showed, floods do happen. Mining activity, storage of coal and sediment ponds should not be allowed within the 100 year flood plain of Sunday Creek. The upper watershed contains many state parks, wildlife areas and national forest and is particularly important to protect as unsuitable for mining.
 

The flood plain of Sunday Creek is a sensitive habitat of an already damaged creek from past mining activities. Efforts are underway to restore Sunday Creek. Coal and sediment ponds must not be located within the flood plain of Sunday Creek. The flood plain of Sunday Creek, a navigatable waterway, is clearly imperative to be protected as Army Corps regulations show. Much of the drainage of Sunday Creek is owned by the Wayne National Forest or in its purchase boundaries, making this among the three areas in Ohio with a potential of restoring significant contiguous forest but only if the land is not mined.

Clearly, coal mine refuse piles and sediment ponds should be banned from the flood plain of Sunday Creek. The Sunday Creek Flood Plain has sandy alluvial soils highly permeable to acid drainage. Also, in the event of a flood₁even the best containment system would be useless. Sunday Creek flooded this year, and has many times in {recent past. Allowing coal storage or sediment ponds on the flood plain would set the stage for an ecological disaster. Furthermore, Sunday Creek flows into the Hocking River, which is also part of a larger watershed restoration program.
 

Ohio Revised Code section 1513.16A3 stipulates that mine operators "cover Ml acid-forming and other toxic materials in order to achieve an ecologically sound land use compatible with the surrounding region." Covering a pile in the flood plain would violate Army Corps of Engineers floodplain regulations. In the event of a flood, the cover could wash off, along with the acid-polluting coal. The site is on the outside bend of Sunday Creek, where flood waters are the most damaging (see map A). In addition, adjacent land uses are wild lands. Mining and pollution are clearly antagonistic to natural areas. With the tiny amount of public lands open to Ohioans, this would seriously impact recreational opportunities and tourism revenue. It would violate/the aforementioned Ohio law to allow mining activity of any kind on the flood plain of Sunday Creek.
 

Forest Creek

Just north of Glouster, the unnamed creek flowing into Sunday Creek some 1000 feet north of the intersection where route 78 leaves state route 13 for McConnelsville is exceptional in quality and should be declared unsuitable for mining. The creek is a critical wildlife corridor between two wildlife areas, a state park and a National Forest, and is named in this petition as Forest Creek. The photos show its unique and irreplaceable natural beauty or condition that qualified the land for designation as lands unsuitable for mining.
 

Forest Creek has a QHEI rating of 96 out of 100. It serves as a wildlife corridor between Wolf Creek State Wildlife, Burr Oak State Park, Wildcat Hollow~ a*+d the Wayne National Forest, and the Trimble State Wildlife Area. The land is also densely underlaid with abandoned mines that are loaded with acid mine precipitation.
 
 

QHEI of Forest Creek

The Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index (QHEI) is a procedure established by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to rate the quality

of streams and rivers. It is rated on a 100 point scale, 100 being the best. Forest Creek earned a QHEI rating of 96, an exceptionally high rating. The stream had a 110 % rating. The creek had a total 22 of maximum 20 points. Only 20 points are counted for the QHEI because of the limits set. The actual scientific rating is 22.

Yet this exceptional creek is about to be strip mined by Buckingham Coal Company. Further, the pollution will flow into Sunday Creek which dumps into the Hocking River just above where Athens and Ohio University gets its drinking water.