Ohio Supreme Court: It’s OK To Strip Mine State Wildlife Areas

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/19/3569309/ohio-supreme-court-ok-to-strip-mine-state-parks/

by Ari Phillips Posted on September 19, 2014

This week, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled 6-1 to potentially allow part of a state wildlife area to be strip-mined for coal. The ruling, which settles a dispute involving an esoteric land contract from 1944, could open up $2 million of coal to be dug out of a 651-acre section of the Brush Creek Wildlife Area owned by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.rtment of Natural Resources.

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The lone dissenter, Justice Terrence O’Donnell, said the court previously ruled that strip mining is not always authorized under mineral-rights contracts, having found that “the right to ‘use’ the surface cannot be reasonably construed as the right to destroy it.”

While the case itself seems to be based on prior rulings and events in Jefferson County, there is a broader debate in Ohio about natural resource extraction on state lands. Earlier this year it was revealed that in 2012 top advisers of Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) and the ODNR were involved in a plan to sway public opinion in favor of opening up public lands for oil and gas drilling. In February, Gov. Kasich abruptly abandoned this effort on the same day that state Democrats called for an investigation into a leaked 2012 memo outlining the plan.

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This summer Ohio also became the first state to freeze its renewable energy and energy efficiency standards, in a bill signed by Gov. Kasich. With the EPA’s Clean Power Plan calling for Ohio to reduce the carbon intensity of its existing power plants by 28 percent by 2030, strip-mining coal seems even further ill-advised on top of the immediate environmental degradation.

Ohio is one of a dozen states suing the EPA in an attempt to obstruct the proposed rules designed to cut GHGs from existing coal-fired power plants.

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