Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Mining Environment topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Department of Mines seeks IT upgrade, hydrologist and reclamation funding to modernize oversight
Summary
The Department of Mines told the House subcommittee it is digitizing decades of paper permits, tightening inspection processing times and needs a hydrologist and funding to finish reclamation at forfeited sites.
Susan Rodnansky, director of the Oklahoma Department of Mines, briefed the House appropriations subcommittee on agency operations and a small package of funding requests to modernize permitting, inspection and reclamation.
Rodnansky said inspectors now deliver 90% of inspection reports electronically and that the agency has shortened permit processing times. "We were able to cut that processing time by about 50%. So something that was taking 16 weeks to get issued ... we could get a mining permit out in about eight weeks," she told lawmakers.
The department said it has more than 750 active mining permits across 75 counties; most are sand-and-gravel, limestone and dimensional-stone operations. Rodnansky asked the committee for $100,000 to fund digital scanning, mapping and an interactive public website so residents and local governments can view permit locations and permit documents online.
She also asked for funding for a hydrologist. Rodnansky said mining operators and the public have raised questions about hydrology and potential effects on local water tables and aquifers. The department lacked in-house hydrology expertise and industry stakeholders expressed interest in having a hydrologist on staff to analyze permit impacts and respond to disputes.
Rodnansky described progress on reclamation: the agency has about 30 sites with forfeited bonds requiring remediation and has hired a contract manager to start awarding reclamation contracts.
Lawmakers asked about bond amounts and how the current $1,500-per-acre performance bond standard (in statute) has held up. Rodnansky said bonds sometimes do not cover full reclamation costs, especially for operations that have large pits or substantial mobilization costs. She said permit-by-permit assessments guide reclamation planning.
Rodnansky also described the department's non-mining-blasting oversight and explosive-distributor audits, an instructor-staffed Oklahoma Miner Training Institute at Eastern Oklahoma State College, and the agency's inspection presence across rural areas.
