A Public Hearing for the pending Coal Refuse Disposal Area (CRDA) No. 7 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) water permit was held last Wednesday, July 17 at the Morris Township Community Center in Graysville, PA. The Observer-Reporter and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette attended the meeting (and their stories are linked here with their respective names).
Only a handful of concerned residents were able to make the mid-afternoon meeting time on a Wednesday: the meeting was held from 1:00-3:00 p.m. In our history of requesting and attending meetings like this, community members have consistently pressed for meetings to be held at times that are accessible to residents, but these requests are invariably ignored. The unwillingness to consider residents is a disservice, and allows for an inaccurate portrait of a lack of concern around the issue.
For their part, Consol Energy doesn’t mind the low turnout. “We own all the surface properties affected by the construction in this permit area, so we didn’t expect a lot of people to show up,” said Anthony Drezewski, Consol’s director of land resources. They didn’t expect many people to attend because they have effectively and systematically removed them (and thus, part of the “problem”) from the permit area. Not only have these landowners and taxpayers been displaced, but the coal companies will now devastate and devalue some 900 acres of a beautiful, lush and thriving valley. This, in turn, will drive down property values and bring further costs to taxpayers!
Consol executives will use and abuse the land and workers until it no longer lines their pocketbooks, and then the burden of their operations will fall upon the taxpayers of Greene County and the rest of Pennsylvania.
