Texas coal companies are leaving behind contaminated land. The state is letting them.
CHRISTINE — In the late 1970s, at the tail end of a sweeping push to bring electricity to rural Texas, Alonzo Peeler Jr. struck a series of deals with three electric cooperatives: They could build a coal-fired power plant on the sprawling Atascosa County ranch where his family had run cattle for more than a century. And they could mine the abundant lignite, or “brown coal,” from underneath the property to feed the plant.
To Peeler, now 79, it made sense for a multitude of reasons. Not only would it bring more power generation to the farming and ranching region south of San Antonio, https://www.theeagle.com/news/state-and-regional/texas-coal-companies-are-leaving-behind-contaminated-land-the-state/article_478e5586-560f-5b91-b56e-be582e48406e.html it would boost the local tax base and bring additional income to his family.
“Looking back,” Peeler says now, “I made a big mistake.”
Peeler, who grew up on the now 25,000-acre ranch and dropped out of college to come home and help run it, thought the contract he signed ensured the cooperatives would promptly restore his land as soon as they were done mining it. In fact, the agreement required them to begin restoring the land within six months of abandoning excavated areas.
That wasn’t just in the contract, either: State and federal laws require companies to “reclaim” mined land, a process in which companies restore land to its former condition so that it can be used again for grazing cattle, building homes, and businesses or recreation.
Read more: https://www.theeagle.com/news/state-and-regional/texas-coal-companies-are-leaving-behind-contaminated-land-the-state/article_478e5586-560f-5b91-b56e-be582e48406e.html
(Bryan-College Station Eagle)
