Lands Unsuitable for Mining, a Kentucky Example

Abstract

In the transfer of surface mining regulatory authority from the federal government to state governments, significant archaeological and historic sites have been, and continue to be, jeopardized. In the Commonwealth of Kentucky, primacy in this regulatory function has meant an almost total disregard for the effect of mining on cultural resources and thus the cultural impoverishment of the state and the nation at large. The Lands Unsuitable for Mining petition process offers concerned citizens a vehicle by which such inadequacies may be addressed. Lands Unsuitable for Mining Petition 83–1, the first petition to be filed in Kentucky and the first such petition in the nation to be filed solely on the grounds of potential impacts of mining on significant archaeological sites, successfully forced the issue for a 166 km 2 area in the Big Bend region of Kentucky's Green River. It must be acknowledged that use of the lands unsuitable petition process leads inevitably to a potentially volatile confrontation between archaeologists and coal operators and therefore, it represents an abysmal preservation tool. Nevertheless, in states such as Kentucky it remains the only regulatory option available to insure that significant sites are adequately considered in the permitting process.