To: Javed Mirza, District Mining Manager, PA DEP, The Pennsylvania State House, The Pennsylvania State Senate, and Governor Tom Wolf
Keep Buffalo Creek Clean
Donegal Township, Butler County Pennsylvania is the proposed site of 3 surface coal mines that are nearly contiguous or next to each other over a 5 mile area. The mines are the Hoffer and the Walters/Harger mines. The Walters/Harger mines go thru the Hickey Bottom Wetlands, cause great risk to the high quality Buffalo Creek trout stream, and remove the habitat for the endangered eastern massasagua rattlesnake. We the undersigned oppose the surface mine boundaries and demand that the mines are limited to exclude the Hickey Bottom wetlands and Buffalo Creek.
Why is this important?
Buffalo Creek, a high quality trout stream in Donegal Twp, Butler Country, Pennsylvania is regularly stocked by the PA Fish Commission and utilized by thousands of people for recreational purposes. It is known as one of the ten best trout streams in PA. Hickey Bottom Wetlands, where Buffalo Creek flows, is one of the diminishing areas of unspoiled land that exists in Butler County, habitat of the endangered Massasauga Rattlesnake and other threatened wildlife.
A mining corporation is in the process of making application to the PA Department of Environmental Protection for strip mining permits to mine this land. There are now 3 surface mines and a deep coal mine proposed within a 5 mile radius. Strip mining removes all vegetation, destroys the habitat for all wildlife, removes all topsoil and the underground rock layer, then proceeds to remove coal. The mine will go down into the earth seven stories. The devastation to local wetlands, fishing waters, hunting grounds, and habitat for all the living creatures held within, will not be possible to be reclaimed in the lifetime of our generation.
We are asking everyone who lives in or visits Donegal Twp Buffalo Creek to join in protecting the creek and wetlands
A mining corporation is in the process of making application to the PA Department of Environmental Protection for strip mining permits to mine this land. There are now 3 surface mines and a deep coal mine proposed within a 5 mile radius. Strip mining removes all vegetation, destroys the habitat for all wildlife, removes all topsoil and the underground rock layer, then proceeds to remove coal. The mine will go down into the earth seven stories. The devastation to local wetlands, fishing waters, hunting grounds, and habitat for all the living creatures held within, will not be possible to be reclaimed in the lifetime of our generation.
We are asking everyone who lives in or visits Donegal Twp Buffalo Creek to join in protecting the creek and wetlands