This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here.
By Lee Hedgepeth, Inside Climate News
OAK GROVE, Ala. — For what may be the first time in its history, the Alabama Surface Mining Commission, charged with regulating the surface impacts of underground coal mining in the state, has been put on formal notice by its federal counterpart to force a coal mine’s compliance with the law or face further regulatory action.
In a “ten-day notice” sent to the agency in early December, officials with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) wrote that investigators had determined that Oak Grove Mine in western Jefferson County may be out of legal compliance for failing to adequately monitor potentially explosive methane emissions from the mine.
The federal regulatory action comes about nine months after a March 2024 home explosion atop the expanding mine killed the home’s owner, 74-year-old W.M. Griffice, and left his grandson seriously injured. The family’s lawsuit against Crimson Oak Grove Resources, which operates the mine, alleges that methane escaping from the operation filled the Griffice home, causing the explosion. Lawyers for Oak Grove Mine have denied responsibility in court filings.
The ten-day notice by U.S. regulators was issued following a federal inspection of the mine and visits to residences across Oak Grove that came days after an Inside Climate News investigation into federal inaction on the issue.
State regulators have done virtually nothing to address the concerns of citizens in Oak Grove who fear the risks of longwall mining. It took regulators months to hold a public meeting for citizens to voice those concerns, and officials said they had little power to intervene. So far, Alabama legislators have made no move toward proposing legislation to address the issues in Oak Grove, or risks from longwall mining more generally.
In the OSMRE inspection report, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, investigators wrote that Oak Grove Mine’s current subsidence control plan does not adequately address the risks associated with methane release from the mining operation. Alabama officials approved its subsidence plan as recently as June 2024, according to the federal inspection report.
The ten-day notice directed Alabama mine regulators to require subsidence and methane gas monitoring as mining moves forward beneath the small, rural Alabama community.
Alabama regulators now have 10 days within which to either force correction of the violation or “show cause” for any failure to do so.
Officials with the Alabama Surface Mining Commission declined to comment for this story, writing in an email that the agency’s response to the ten-day notice would be “forthcoming” and could be obtained through OSMRE.
Officials with Oak Grove Mine did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The inspection report underlying the ten-day notice shows that federal investigators followed in the footsteps of Inside Climate News’ reporting on Oak Grove, visiting the Griffice home and the mine as well as the homes of Lisa Lindsay, Clara Riley and Randy Myrick, all residents profiled as part of the newsroom’s Undermined series.
State officials and managers of the mine accompanied OSMRE staff for the inspection, according to the report, including to the site of the Griffice home explosion.
There, federal inspectors noted the recent installation of various methane vents in the aftermath of the explosion, meant to safely route air out of the ground and into the atmosphere. The inspection report notes that when a federal staffer with a methane monitor approached one vent, his device “went into a warning mode and gave a reading of 32 percent of the lower explosive limit of methane.”
During visits to residents’ homes, OSMRE officials observed subsidence damage; inspected wells, which can serve as a route for methane to escape to the surface; and spoke with residents about their concerns.
Lisa Lindsay, the Griffices’ closest neighbor, said in November that OSMRE inspectors spent just over 20 minutes at her home, briefly asking questions and observing the cracks in her home’s foundations—signs of the subsidence caused by the expanding mine below.
The longwall method of mining used by Oak Grove involves a large machine shearing coal, releasing methane gas and leaving vast underground caverns that collapse once mining has moved on. That collapse, experts say, causes subsidence, or the sinking of the land above, a process that often damages surface structures like the Lindsay home.
Fissures in the land above the mined area can also provide a path of escape for the methane released during mining. It’s that escaping methane that Griffice’s family claims was the cause of the explosion that left their loved one dead.
Lindsay said she is skeptical that any lasting good would stem from the federal inspection, which she called “a dog and pony show,” but that residents will take any help they can get.
The so-called “ten-day notice” is an enforcement tool that federal regulators with OSMRE use sparingly. Only recently did federal regulators announce they would expand the scope of the enforcement mechanism, allowing such notices to stem from citizen complaints, not just federal inspections.
States including Alabama have challenged that expansion, arguing that allowing citizens to complain directly to federal regulators tramples on states’ rights to primary regulation of coal mining within their borders. That legal challenge may soon become moot, as an incoming Trump administration is likely to roll back the rule’s expansion, leaving citizens with one less tool to use in combating the risks caused by the coal mine expanding beneath their homes.
For now, though, Alabama regulators and officials with Oak Grove Mine will be forced to respond to the ten-day notice issued by OSMRE. It “requires ASMC to have [Oak Grove Mine] revise their permit to address the absence of an effective methane monitoring and reporting plan and to update the well survey to include abandoned wells that may transmit methane to the surface after mining.”
The current subsidence control plan submitted by Oak Grove Mine and approved by Alabama regulators lacks specificity around the details of any subsidence and methane monitoring in the wake of active coal mining beneath residents’ homes, according to the report.
“The absence of this information for evaluation in the approved plan must be corrected as soon as possible,” the report said.
The federal agency stopped short of concluding there is a current risk to the safety and health of residents, which could have led to a pause in mining operations. Coal experts including Jack Spadaro have criticized the agency’s unwillingness to address what he said he views as an imminent threat to residents—the uncontrolled escape of methane as coal mining moves forward.
Joe Pizarchik, the former head of OSMRE, has also told Inside Climate News that the federal agency has the power to address the risks of methane by suspending mining operations until those risks are mitigated—something officials there are simply not doing.
“They should be able to conclude that blowing up people’s homes and killing them is an imminent hazard, and they should be able to suspend underground coal mining beneath those areas,” he said earlier this year. “It appears we have a documented example of the regulator’s failure to fulfill their mandatory duty to protect the health and safety of the public.”
Inside Climate News’ November investigation into the agency’s failure in Oak Grove also pointed to a 2001 technical guide on methane escape as a guideline for what should be done in cases where gas escaping from coal mining is a concern.
In its new inspection report, OSMRE pointed to the same document, suggesting that the state regulator direct methane monitoring consistent with the technical manual.
The manual calls for methane sampling prior to, during and after mining occurs, particularly at water wells above the mine.
“Periodic samplings may be appropriate for up to one year,” the manual states. “Regardless of whether or not subsidence-induced changes are observed, the well should be sampled at least three times after the mining passes or until methane returns to ambient levels.”