See UPDATE below 5/10/07
BANNER – Improbable as it may seem, a wildlife area with eagles and ospreys as well as 20 Native American historic sites is on the brink of being turned into a strip mine.
It’s also prone to flooding, as this photo, taken on April 27, 2007, shows.
Environmentalists fighting to save the 643-acre site south of Banner in Fulton County may be losing their legal battles to save the area from strip mining.
“The mine area (currently) has three to four feet of water. It’s ridiculous that they’re trying so hard to secure a permit to mine an area that’s so unsuitable for mining,” said John Grigsby who lives nearby.
Two decades ago, Grigsby successfully fought to have Rice Lake declared unsuitable for mining. That site, adjacent to the Banner site, is now a state managed natural area. But a similar effort to have the Banner site declared unsuitable for mining has been rebuffed by state officials.
“If (this) land with artifacts, bald eagles (and flooding) doesn’t qualify (as unsuitable) no land in the state is unsuitable,” Grigsby said.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Office of Mines and Minerals last week ruled that a petition to have the land declared unsuitable for mining was “incomplete and “untimely.”
The 31-page decision is signed by Joe Angleton, director of the DRN”s Office of Mines and Minerals.
Joe Angleton, 58, of DuQuoin, was appointed to the post in 2005, and is a former United Mine Workers and AFl-CIO official, hardly an objective observer with expertise in environmental issues.
The decision, likely written by a staff lawyer, is filled with legal jargon, as it sets forth reasons to reject the petition, even though considered untimely and incomplete.
In a nutshell, it argues that strip mining won’t last forever (though it may seem like forever to nearby residents), and eventually the site will be reclaimed.
Therefore a strip mine would not be incompatible with a Scenic Byways designation for Illinois Route 24, it says.
“Mining is a temporary land use,” it states, in rejecting the claim that wildlife viewing and tourism in the area would be harmed, and nearby property values lessened.
“While in the short term certain quality of life values may be impaired, these values can be restored at some point in the future,” it claims.
Blasting won’t disturb the eagles and ospreys near the mine site, it asserts.
It also says mining operations won’t disturb bald eagle roosts, because they are in nearby Rice Lake.
Grigsby, however, recently pointed out a bald eagle nest on the property. And on January 6, a bald eagle was found shot in the “Banner, Ill. area,” according to a DNR news release. It soon died.
The DNR has refused to release police reports on the exact location of the fallen eagle, saying the incident is still under investigation.
Was that inconvenient eagle shot to scare it away from the mine property?
Until the DNR decides to release the police report giving a location, that's anyone's guess.
There could be another reason the DNR refuses to release that report.
The agency says it's "unaware of any critical habitats of federally listed species which occur in or adjacent to the petition. Such habitats, if present, could be a basis to deny a permit,” it states.
“There are no documented eagle sites within the current petition area,” it states.
Three hundred acres of wetlands at the site also are no problem. Wetlands in the area will be mitigated, it says.
The DNR agrees the site is within the 100-year floodplain of the Illinois River, but says the site is in a fringe area, not in a floodway. So activities there would not increase flooding along the river itself.
As for the 20 native American sites identified on the mine property, some of which could be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, “this allegation lacks serious merit” because they can be excavated before they’re destroyed, it says.
The opinion brushes off the complaint that blasting could rupture wells or the sewage treatment plant at the village of Banner. “This allegation lacks serious merit,” it states.
The opinion is another blow to mine opponents, and obviously designed to discourage them. They filed suit to keep a township road, Prairie Lane Road, that crosses the property open, against the wishes of the township road commissioner who closed it. The mine cannot destroy an open road.
They lost but have appealed the decision to the Illinois Supreme Court.
The mine property is owned by the usual faceless corporations with some connections to the Crown family in Chicago.
According to news reports, Central Utility Coal Co. of Indiana, owns most of the land but the mining rights are controlled by Capital Resources Development Corp., which wants to mine 1.6 million tons of coal from the site. Freeman United Coal Mining Co., is a part of this operation.
General Dynamics Corp. of Falls Church, Va., the defense contractor, is Freeman’s parent corporation.
See its board of directors, complete with token woman and black man here.
--Elaine Hopkins
UPDATE: See this story in the LA Times on the plans to turn coal into liquid fuel, Barack Obama's support for that idea, and the environmental problems which neglect to mention coal mining itself.
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