According to court documents released on the anti-longwall group’s web site, it is seeking to keep Cline Resources subsidiary Colt LLC and IEC (Montgomery) from proposed plans to mine in the area by asking a judge to determine that 80-year-old property deeds did not include authorisation for longwall mining.
Neither company has filed a mining permit application with the state, according to industry publication Platts.
The lawsuit documentation raised concerns about subsidence from longwall mining.
Filings also state that IEC obtained rights to mine about 85,000 acres in December 2003, and Colt bought rights to approximately 120,000 acres in December 2004 through another agreement for $US6.2 million. Both properties are in Montgomery County, and both companies intend to extract the coal using a longwall, according to Platts.
