United States v. HGD & J. Min. Co., Inc.

• Citation: 561 F. Supp. 315
• Decision Date: 01 April 1983
• Docket Number: C.A. No. 80-3187.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. H.G.D. & J. MINING COMPANY, INC., a corporation, Defendant.

561 F. Supp. 315

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. H.G.D. & J. MINING COMPANY, INC., a corporation, Defendant.

C.A. No. 80-3187.

United States District Court, S.D. West Virginia, Huntington Division.

April 1, 1983.

S. Benjamin Bryant, Asst. U.S. Atty., Huntington, W.Va., for plaintiff.

Carl Fletcher, Charleston, W.Va., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

STAKER, District Judge.

Plaintiff, the United States of America, acting at the request of its Secretary of the Interior (Secretary), filed complaint herein alleging that during certain quarters of the years 1977 and 1978, the defendant, H.G.D. & J. Mining Company, Inc., operated in Lincoln County, West Virginia, in this District, a surface coal mining and reclamation operation that was subject to the provisions of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, 30 U.S.C. §§ 1201, et seq. (the Act), and in so doing produced 16,173.55 tons of coal in respect to which the defendant became and was obligated to pay to the Secretary reclamation fees amounting to $5,660.74, plus statutory interest, pursuant to the provisions of 30 U.S.C. § 1232(a) and (e),¹ which defendant had refused to pay, although requested by the Secretary to do so, and for which plaintiff demanded judgment.

Defendant answered and, in substance, admitted that it "dredged" 16,173.55 tons of coal from the site and during the quarters as alleged in the complaint, but denied that any reclamation fees were owing to the Secretary in virtue of its having done so, and defensively averred that the court lacks jurisdiction over defendant in this action for the reason that the coal involved here was not produced by defendant's having operated any "surface mining and reclamation operation or other coal mining operation" within the meaning of those terms as defined by the Act, but was rather produced by defendant's having operated a "dredging operation," which defendant averred was not an activity that was subject to the provisions of the Act. Defendant also defensively averred that its dredging of such coal for commercial purposes affected two acres or less,² for which reason the provisions of the Act were not applicable thereto.

Thus the basic issue here is whether, as a matter of law, the defendant, by dredging the coal involved from the river in the manner as shown by the parties' factual stipulations hereinafter set forth, was within the class of "all operators of coal mining operations subject to the provisions of ..." the Act, as provided in 30 U.S.C. § 1232(a).

The parties entered into a stipulation of facts, and filed their respective memorandums of law, bearing upon that issue, defendant's memorandum having been accompanied by defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, and the parties then submitted the case for decision by this court.

Those facts, as so stipulated, are quoted in the following numbered paragraphs 1 through 12:

STIPULATION OF FACTS

1. H.G.D. & J. Mining Company, Inc., is a West Virginia corporation.

2. Defendant H.G.D. & J. Mining Company, Inc. (H.G.D. & J.) at all times relevant to this action engaged in a coal dredging operation on the Guyandotte River near Hamlin, Lincoln County, West Virginia, the products of which enter into interstate commerce.

3. The H.G.D. & J. coal dredging operation is conducted, first, by making an excavation into the natural river bottom. The cut into the river bottom creates a depression or hole approximately 15 feet deep and 200 yards long, the purpose of which is to obtain coal by creating a settling basin to intercept coal washed out of upstream coal loading or mining operations, abandoned coal mines or exposed coal seams. The Guyandotte River is naturally approximately 4 feet deep in the area where the H.G.D. & J. coal dredging operation is located.

4. A cutter operating from a barge floating above the settling basin is used to churn up the newly deposited coal and debris whereupon it is pumped through pipes to a cleaning plant located at or near the dredging site on the banks of the Guyandotte River. The coal is physically treated to remove impurities and transported by truck approximately .6 mile down river to a coal loading facility where the coal is loaded into railroad cars for shipment to the commercial or industrial purchaser.

5. The land over which the Guyandotte River flows and the river itself are regulated by the State of West Virginia and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. By License Agreement dated February 3, 1955, between the Public Land Corporation of West Virginia, a Public Land Corporation of West Virginia, and H.G.D. & J. Mining Company, Inc., the H.G.D. & J. Mining Company, Inc., is granted title to usable and merchantable sand, gravel or coal dredged, excavated or removed from the bed of the Guyandotte River beginning at the mouth of Ranger Branch, a point approximately 1.5 miles below the town of Ranger, Lincoln County, West Virginia, and extending 10 miles downstream of the Guyandotte River to the vicinity of Sheridan, Lincoln County, West Virginia. By License Agreement dated June 1, 1978, between the Public Land Corporation of West Virginia, a Public Land Corporation of West Virginia, and H.G.D. & J. Mining Company, Inc., the H.G.D. & J. Mining Company, Inc., is granted title to said usable and merchantable sand, gravel or coal when so dredged, excavated or removed from the bed of the Guyandotte River beginning at mile point 32.5, in the vicinity of Sheridan, Lincoln County, West Virginia, and extending downstream to the junction of said Guyandotte River and Ohio River at Huntington, Cabell County, West Virginia. The approximate distance from Sheridan, Lincoln County, West Virginia to the junction of the Guyandotte River and the Ohio River at Huntington, Cabell County, West Virginia is 40 miles.

6. H.G.D. & J. has obtained from the United States Army Corps of Engineers a valid permit for the aforesaid river dredging operation. H.G.D. & J. has not obtained surface mining permits for its aforesaid operation under either West Virginia or federal statutes and regulations pertaining to surface mining activities, but has obtained from the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources, Water Resources Division, a valid permit for its river dredging operation on the Guyandotte River.

7. H.G.D. & J.'s operation does not involve extracting coal from any deposit in its original geological location in the stream bed of the Guyandotte River.

8. H.G.D. & J.'s operation dredges coal commercially for sale on the open market.

9. H.G.D. & J.'s aforesaid operation dredged a total of 16,173.65 tons of coal during the fourth calendar quarter of 1977, the second, third and fourth calendar quarters of 1978, and the first and second calendar quarters of 1979.

10. The reclamation fee appropriate for 16,173.65 tons of coal produced in an operation subject to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 is Five Thousand Six Hundred Sixty Dollars and Seventy-Four Cents ($5,660.74).

11. H.G.D. & J. received a letter from Mr. Jake Vassel of the Office of Surface Mining, dated December 4, 1978, demanding payment of reclamation fees in the amount of Four Thousand Four Hundred Seventy-Three Dollars ($4,473.00), plus interest at one percent (1%) per month. No other letters demanding payment were received by H.G.D. & J.

12. H.G.D. & J. has not paid to the Secretary of the Interior the sum of Five Thousand Six Hundred Sixty Dollars and Seventy-Four Cents ($5,660.74) in reclamation fees, nor any other amount, on the coal dredged by its operation on the Guyandotte River.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

This court has jurisdiction of this cause pursuant to 30 U.S.C. § 1232(e) and 28 U.S.C. § 1345.³

The language, tenor and stated purpose of the Act⁴ manifest an intent by the Congress thereby to create and implement a comprehensive and broadly remedial statutory scheme calculated to enable reclamation efforts to be carried out to alleviate the adverse effects to the environment caused by coal mining operations conducted before August 3, 1977, the Act's effective date, and to regulate those conducted after that date in a manner designed to reduce like effects that would result therefrom. To that end, the provisions of 30 U.S.C. § 1232(a) require "operators of coal mining operations" to pay a fee based upon tons of coal produced by them after that date, into a fund from which those reclamation efforts were to be financed, thus placing upon the coal mining industry, and ultimately upon the consuming public, the burden of financing those reclamation efforts.

Defendant contends, in substance, that 30 U.S.C. § 1232(a) provides that the reclamation fee is to be paid by "all operators of coal mining operations subject to the provisions of the" Act, and that defendant's activity of dredging coal from the river did not constitute defendant the operator of "coal mining operations subject to the provisions of the" Act, because

(a) as defined by the Act, 30 U.S.C. § 1291(28),⁵ "surface coal mining operations" are "activities conducted on the surface of lands in connection with a surface coal mine," etc., and the word "dredging" is not mentioned in that definition nor is there any language in that definition from which one could infer that river dredging operations are included therein;

(b) the language of that definition plainly and unambiguously states that surface coal mining operations are "activities conducted on the surface of lands" when defendant's dredging operation is not so conducted; and

(c) that definition covers "activities conducted on the surface of lands in connection with a surface coal mine," when defendant's dredging operation is neither a surface coal mine nor conducted in connection with a surface coal mine.

Defendant's assertion that the Act makes no mention of "dredging" is correct; however, in this court's view, defendant's contentions that the definition of "surface coal mining operations" set forth in 30...