Is the City of Hillsboro Looking Out for the Best Interests of Its Residents?

Why would a municipality agree to pay bills of a private company when the city does not have enough financial flexibility to meet its own obligations without borrowing?

The City of Hillsboro has agreed to pay over $2 million dollars for bills of Deer Run Mine that would be reimbursed at a later time by Patton Mining.  Is this the most prudent way to use citizens’ tax revenue?  Keep in mind that the mine has already received tax breaks by being in the Enterprise Zone.

This conflicting arrangement should never have happened.  For the City to appropriate approximately 30 percent of its working budget to subsidize Deer Run Mine’s obligations is fiscally irresponsible and establishes a dangerous precedent. How can the City demand that the mine follow critical safety issues when in reality it is a quasi-partner with the mine? The City has placed itself in a very vulnerable position and its residents even more so.

The dates when the loan repayments are made should be made public and interest should be paid to the City based on current rates.  The City is having major financial problems; Deer Run Mine, owned by billionaire Chris Cline, is not.

The community’s interests have not been protected in other ways. The airport was sold to Hillsboro Energy LLC on January 9, 2008 for $350,000 with the stipulation that a replacement facility be provided within 10 years or before the present airport is decommissioned – which has already happened. What is the status of a new airport?  Hillsboro citizens would certainly like to know.

Local roads, including Route 185, are experiencing heavy use by mine trucks and will be subjected to subsidence.  Roads surrounding the mine have been particularly affected, but the expense of repair is not necessarily the responsibility of the mine.  Patton Mining is paying for the materials needed to repair the road south of Kink’s Corner, but the county is supplying the labor.  The cost of future road repair can be illustrated by the resurfacing of Red Ball Trail for $1.2 Million.   The county pays $333,000, grants cover approximately $700,000, Ameren $280,000; so it is ultimately the tax payer who will bear the burden, not the mine.

So, what do you think?  Is the City of Hillsboro looking out for the best interests of its residents?

Can Hillsboro Afford the Money Drain of Deer Run Mine?

Mining coal brings in millions of dollars in profits for out of state coal companies – but how much of that actually benefits the Illinois communities where coal is mined? The city of Hillsboro – where a West Virginia coal company has begun work on the massive new Deer Run mine – is concerned about the lack of funds available to manage its financial obligations. The city’s finance Commissioner, Richard Small has suggested possible ways to increase revenue including a sales tax increase, a telecommunication tax on cell phones and landlines, and phasing out extra benefit perks for employees and volunteers.

With Hillsboro’s obvious cash flow problem, it is puzzling why the city has paid over $1.6 million in 2011 for bills of Deer Run Mine. For example, at the December 13, 2011 City Council meeting, it was decided to borrow $52,000 for a scheduled water tower payment, but the commissioners voted to pay a $139,050 bill for the mine. In 2009, when the Hillsboro Zoning Board of Appeals amended the land use plan to allow underground coal mining, the stated reason for the zoning change was “… to promote economic growth of the community, conserve property values, and protect the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of the City of Hillsboro, Illinois…” Instead, the mine has become a financial drain on the area, becoming a prime example of what should not be allowed to happen when a new coal mine comes into a community.

While the Hillsboro area is suffering financially,  billionaire Chris Cline, owner of Foresight Energy Partners and Deer Run Mine, has filed an initial public offering that is expected to bring in over $100 million. Meanwhile, the people of Montgomery County are being paid a pittance for the coal under their feet. The coal rights for over 200 million tons of coal reserves were sold by Montgomery County Board to an affiliate of the Cline Group, in December, 2004 for only $7.2 million, which then turned around and resold those coal rights to another Cline affiliate for $255 million. It is more than a tragedy that our community has been so misled.

The city and county leaders are promoting Deer Run Mine with the cooperation from the Office of Mines and Minerals and Office of Water Resources in the Department of Natural Resources. The mine has been given free range to make profits and grow. So citizens of Hillsboro, we must defend our community and quality of life for our children and grandchildren. Our government and regulatory agencies have not done their job to protect us.

Before it’s too late, request a public hearing on the Deer Run high hazard dam!

High hazard coal slurry impoundment in Macoupin County.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources Office of Mines and Minerals has given approval to the Deer Run Mine to build a high hazard coal slurry impoundment within the city limits of Hillsboro without adequate public input such as holding a public hearing.
High hazard coal slurry impoundment in Macoupin County.

The coal slurry impoundment will be over 80 feet high and over a mile long on each side, and it will contain toxic coal waste containing heavy metals and other harmful pollution.

Before it’s too late, the Office of Water Resources (OWR) needs to hear from you. Please request a public hearing with OWR regarding whether Deer Run Mine should be allowed to construct a high hazard coal slurry dam within the city limits of Hillsboro.

Follow this link to see example letters from local citizens.

Deer Run Mine to Construct High Hazard Coal Slurry Impoundment in City of Hillsboro

OUTRAGED RESIDENTS SPEAK OUT AT PUBLIC HEARING

Construction on High Hazard Coal Slurry Impoundment at Deer Run Mine, Hillsboro, IL, 8/12/2011

In 2009 when Hillsboro Energy, LLC got the go-ahead to build a new coal mine, the permit application approved by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ Office of Mines and Minerals made no mention of a massive coal slurry impoundment to be located within the city of Hillsboro. Local residents asked mine representatives time and again at presentations and public hearings – where will the mine put all its toxic waste?

Now, local residents finally have their answer: the mine will dump hundreds of millions of gallons of coal slurry – the liquid waste product leftover after coal is processed, which is full of harmful metals and other pollution – into an 80 ft. tall impoundment that will cover over one square mile. This is rated as a High Hazard dam, meaning that if the coal slurry impoundment were to fail, it would result in massive loss of life and property in Hillsboro and Schram City, and could send pollution downstream into Old Lake Hillsboro.

Adding insult to injury, residents just found out that this coal slurry impoundment will last the mine fewer than 5 years – meaning that every 5 years, the community can expect the mine to build another of these High Hazard coal slurry impoundments in their backyard.

And that’s only the beginning – Deer Run mine used the Insignificant Permit Revision and Incidental Boundary Revision process to receive approval from IDNR to build the entire base of the High Hazard coal slurry impoundment and begin dumping coal slurry there before any opportunity for public comment, and before the mine received a dam permit from IDNR’s Office of Water Resources.

At the August 13th Office of Mines and Minerals public informal conference on the proposed coal slurry impoundment, local residents raised these and other concerns, including that the Public Notice for the coal slurry impoundment’s dam permit was not actually publicized. The Illinois Attorney General’s Office soon weighed in on the issue of public notice with a letter, because local residents and even their elected officials were completely unaware of the proposed changes in the permit that would leave an 80-ft. mountain of coal waste in their community forever.

Unfortunately, the response from IDNR has been predictable. Instead of requiring the mine to stop slurry disposal and dam construction activities until this issue is resolved, IDNR’s Office of Water Resources rescinded its original Cease and Desist Order and opted to grant Deer Run Mine an Emergency Dam Permit – allowing the mine to proceed with building this High Hazard Dam before the agency considers comments from the public. In the meantime, the Office of Mines and Minerals maintained at the Public Hearing on October 11th that this “bait and switch” is perfectly legal, even though there was no opportunity for public comment before much of the structure was already built.

It might be expected that the local press could be counted on for balanced coverage of these developments at the Deer Run mine, considering the massive loss of life and property that coal slurry and coal ash impoundment failures have caused in the past, and the damage they’ve done to groundwater in Illinois. But instead, Hillsboro’s Journal-News has refused to publish a letter from a professional engineer Bob Johnson documenting the threats posed by coal slurry impoundments and IDNR’s unwillingness to enforce the law which requires coal mines to clean up these waste dumps after mining is over. The Journal-News was also unaware of the publicly available information that the mine has already violated its water pollution permit 24 times.

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