Rural property owner vs coal mine

NothingButTheTruth

NothingButTheTruth

Well-known member
To the legal gurus out there, please give me some advice on this situation.

Along with my two sisters, we own a 73-acre non-working farm in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Farm has been in our family since the 1940's, purchased by our Purple Heart recipient father just after WWII. Extremely rural setting....like the movie Deliverance.

In the early 80's, an extremely large longwall coal mine opened adjacent to our property. It has always been noisy and an eyesore. To say large is an understatement as it is or was one of the highest producing longwall mines in the world.

The mining company has bought out all of our neighboring farms. We will never sell as the farm is more than just a property to us, it is a legacy.

Now, the mine wants to put an overland conveyor belt across the valley, about 400 feet from our farmhouse. It will without a doubt create even more noise than we already have endured for over 40 years. Not to mention the eyesore this conveyor belt will be.

Here is the question.....do we have any recourse to stop this project? Does the coal company have the right to be a nuisance because we are the only property impacted? Do they have the right to infringe upon our enjoyment of our property?

The Army Corp of Engineers denied my request for a public hearing after I replied to their notification letter. They seem to be very accommodating to the coal company.

Please help! Thank you in advance.
 
 
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I wrote up a several hundred word response but this stupid program dumped my answer with a mere "were sorry , an error occurred message" , so I will retry with a few smaller posts.
 
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If Pennsylvania law is similar to Ohio, you have virtually no protections from any neighbors encroachments to sight, sound or odor in rural. So long as their conveyer is constructed according to legal setbacks , often 10 -30 ft minimums, then you are out of luck.
 
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Very seldom do rural areas ever limit personal property rights, which is why I can have a 300 ft tall cell tower erected 50 ft off your back property line, and 150 ft from your back door, and there is nothing your can do about it. I can raise pigs or chickens in confinement conditions, and if your house is 100 ft to the east, you get to enjoy my smells and play with my flies.
 
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Noise and dust? Noise, little can be done in the country. That rooster crowing, donkey braying, dog barking, tractor running in the middle of the night, grain bin blower whining etc. are all protected forms of noise pollution in the rural areas.
 
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Now I give you what I have found to be the most successful in prohibiting me from doing what I want, and that is using the EPA office to find a violation of acceptable standards and hope they side with you. Unfortunately this works best when Democrats are in power. Still, if there was one government entity that may help you defend against this large companies incursion into your right to peacefully live out your time on your farm, EPA is your best hope. Too much tax revenue impacts local officials ability to condemn a project such as this one. But Washington does not care about local compliance, just impacts on fish, snails, birds etc. So will the noise bother the nesting habbits of the Red Wing Blackbirds or the inability of ground burrowing animals like groundhogs to live at peace?
 
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If the answer is yes, , the EPA might just do you a solid and push the conveyer away from what would be a natural habitat on your property that could be sen as a refuge for wildlife. They won't care about you and how this stresses you out, but harm a snail or earthworm, and they could step in to keep them away from you,
 
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D4fan said:
Now I give you what I have found to be the most successful in prohibiting me from doing what I want, and that is using the EPA office to find a violation of acceptable standards and hope they side with you. Unfortunately this works best when Democrats are in power. Still, if there was one government entity that may help you defend against this large companies incursion into your right to peacefully live out your time on your farm, EPA is your best hope. Too much tax revenue impacts local officials ability to condemn a project such as this one. But Washington does not care about local compliance, just impacts on fish, snails, birds etc. So will the noise bother the nesting habbits of the Red Wing Blackbirds or the inability of ground burrowing animals like groundhogs to live at peace?
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I do know that the EPA is involved with the approval process from my FOIA request of the Army Corp of Engineers. Apparently, there is an endangered species, the Indiana bat, that could be impacted.

The stream (creek) that runs through our farm once was full of aquatic life, including game fish like small-mouth bass and trout. When the coal mine construction began in the early 80's, we would see the water turn dark brown in the evenings. Not long after that, virtually all life was void in the stream. EPA didn't do anything thing then. Apparently, companies can just buy credits, destroy what they please, and go about their business.

I hold out hope that the EPA stops further destruction of a once prestine area.
 
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