Excerpt
IT'S like cancer, Herpes, or AIDS. Certain people have it, but they may not want to admit it or talk about it. And like these serious diseases affecting people, subsidence from underground coal mining can threaten the productive life of some prime soils (1, 4).
Research funded by the U.S. Bureau of Mines and Illinois Department of Energy and Natural Resources between 1982 and 1984 attempted to (a) inventory acreage overlying underground mines and types of mining carried out; (b) determine the extent of subsidence above underground mines; (c) assess the economic effects for landowners, including the scope of damages, costs of repairs, and effects on production costs and yields; and (d) explore policy alternatives to deal with subsidence problems on agricultural land in Illinois. The findings suggest that similar problems may exist throughout the Eastern Interior Coal Basin where mining conditions and soil types are similar (3, 4)
What is subsidence?
Subsidence is nothing more than the caving in of the earth's surface above an underground coal mine. The mine is usually one that has been abandoned, though subsidence can occur above active mines as well. The major coal-producing states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia …
Footnotes
Harold D. Guither is a professor of agricultural policy, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Illinois, Urbana, 61801.
- Copyright 1986 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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