Farmers Fear Coal Mining Will Sink Land

Two mining companies want to dig for coal under nearly half of Montgomery County. They plan to use a nontraditional but highly efficient process called "longwall" mining that will cause flat-as-a-dime land to sag like a burst souffle.

Longwall dispenses with any attempt to shore up the earth when coal is dug away as mine equipment eats through the substrata. The mines are meant to collapse. And when they do, wide swaths of cropland droop 5 or 6 feet. Roads, homes and utility connections will buckle and trees will die, wreaking havoc on farm drainage and perhaps wells.

The companies say that the inconvenience will be brief and that the law requires them to repair damage. Many farmers here, however, contend that's impossible and fear the changes will ruin their fields.

"A dollar bill doesn't fix the land after it's been totally changed forever," said Dale Miller, who farms 1,200 acres here. "I know my land like the back of my hand. I know what spots are a little too wet, what spots are a little too dry. Now they want to screw it up."

Miller is part of a passionate "not in my back-40" style resistance brewing here, even as the summer's soaring energy prices have triggered a headlong rush to exploit the nation's abundant coal reserves.

Longwall backlash is rubbing emotions raw in Montgomery County, south of Springfield, Ill., pitting rural residents against city dwellers and neighbors against neighbors. The mines promise to bring lots of good-paying jobs and billions of dollars in investment, and local officials and business interests see that as the remedy for the county's long economic funk.

The fears of farmers are simply unfounded, longwall backers say. "Some of the folks here think it's all the plagues in the Bible, but it's not," said Roger Dennison, president of Hillsboro Energy, which owns coal rights under 120,000 acres in the county. "We are obligated to return the land and the structures in the same or better condition than we found them, and we will."

Such assurances haven't swayed critics. The Montgomery County Farm Bureau and the Illinois Sierra Club have jumped on the anti-longwall bandwagon. A citizens group has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the mining technique.