2008-07-16_REVISION - C1980007 (2)

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IBIZA 2007-213 The following background facts give rise to this appeal, We note that such facts are undisputed but also that the record before us contains little to verify some assertions. We recite what we understand from the parties to be true. Coal at the Aberdeen Mine is mined by the room and pillar method, employing a series of longwalls, or rooms, separated by pillars, The mining process produces coal as a product and releases methane as an inadvertent byproduct. Initially UAE vented the methane into the atmosphere by a fan and ventilation system that draws ambient air into and through the mine to dilute the methane. The resulting mixture is then expelled from the mine. This mixture is called Ventilation Air Methane or VAM. It is defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as containing a low concentration (often less than 1%) of methane, due to the large quantities of air swept in and through the mine to mix with $nehane and be blown out of the mine, www.epa.gov/cmop/vam/whatisvam.html. As UAE mined deeper, towards a depth of approximately 3,000 feet, the fan and ventilation system used at the mine lost effectiveness at protecting miners from the danger and explosive hazard wrought by methane released underground. This raised a flag to the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), which advised, or ordered, UAE to improve its methane removal system as an issue of mine safety. In response, UAE installed what the parties agree is a "state of the art' drainage system of vertical vents to remove what is identified by some parties as "gob gas. "4 Nonspecific references in the record suggest that It cost the coal companies over $2 million to drill the vent holes. The record indicates that UAE drilled wells to the depth of the underground mine to remove the gob gas from mine panels. The wells are cemented to approximately 2,400 feet, with the bottom 400 feet lined with slotted steel to collect methane from the fracture zone of the longwall. In some cases, the methane flows up the well exiting at the surface vent; in others the methane must be pumped out of the vent. The precise number or location of gob hole vents (GHVs) that have been or ultimately will be drilled is not clear. Maps depict approximately 10 GRVs in the ' Vessels claims that the room dimensions are approximately 8,775 x 775 feet. Vessels Ex. E, Affidavit of Thomas J. Vessels, ? 3, 4 This term is not defined as used here, though this Board has referred to the "gob" in various decisions as a coal mine refuse pile. E.g., Richard S. and Carry L, Maddock (On Reconsideration), 158 IBLA 303, 313 (2006). "Gob" is defined in "A Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms," Bureau of Mines (1968 ed.), to include the "part of a mine from which the coal has been worked away and the space more or less Filled up." The EPA has established an "Enhanced Gob Gas Recovery" program. See www.epa,gov/cmop/docs/ggasrecpv.pdf, 175 IBLA 11 l ?/ti d El=l 'ON viol 10 n W,41,, r 71 :+!7 •07 'MA r --- •-_-? ^^^ -^---- vpa inter onn>it>ion