Coal permit sent back for review

SUTTON — Usibelli Coal Mine’s application for an air quality permit for its proposed Wishbone Hill mine has been sent back for review.

“Ninety-nine percent of the air permit was accepted by the Department of Environmental Conservation, but this one issue, permit condition No. 18 related to the access control plan, has been remanded back to the permit control program for further review and documentation,” said Usibelli spokeswoman Lorali Simon.

But, according to the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council, that one piece is a very important one.

“The Chickaloon Tribe has used this area for traditional and customary use for centuries,” council Chief Gary Harrison said in a press release. “This permit cuts our people off from land we hunt and gather on every year. Our culture depends on access to this land. We are culturally and spiritually connected to this land.”

Lisa Wade, the council’s Director of Health, Education and Social Services, elaborated in a phone interview, saying that the village’s Ya Ne Dah Ah School is directly across the Glenn Highway from the proposed mine site.

“Our children go across the road to look at plants and go berry picking and learn,” she said.

In response, Simon said that the tribe is trying to have it both ways.

“The Chickaloon Village Traditional Council wants DEC to force Usibelli to restrict public access,” she said.

She said that communication between the council and the state has called for the company doing a better job of restricting access. This latest complaint, that Usibelli is cutting local residents off from the land, seems to fly in the face of that.

“You can see how this is just another trick, it’s just another way to delay the project,” she said.

Wade said she wasn’t sure what restrictions Simon was referring to or even what kind of security Usibelli plans to put in place.

“Some people they’ll tell you they have open access and some people they say they’ll be putting up fences so I never know,” Wade said.

She said that the council has sought to meet with the state to talk about sacred sites in the area. These are the type of things the council doesn’t want to put on the record, for fear that making their locations widely available might lead to their destruction.

“It’s not something that we want to just throw out and say, here, go to this spot and you’ll see the remnants of this stuff,” Wade said.

The state did not meet with them.

“There are markings where there are fires, carbon on rocks from thousands of years, those are special sites for us and to not even want to learn about that and to potentially lose them is really disturbing for us,” she said.

She also said that the council’s views about the coal development really aren’t hard to understand.

“We want responsible stewardship of this area and want it to be here for a long time and don’t want to see another big, blasted Jonesville (Mine) here in a useful area for animals and for the salmon that we’re trying to restore,” Wade said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.