The state of coal community protections 48 years after landmark mining law

On Aug. 3, 1977, President Jimmy Carter — flanked by 200 coal community advocates from across the country — signed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act into law in the White House Rose Garden.

SMCRA’s passage came after a six-year campaign driven by those same concerned citizens from Appalachia, the Midwest and Mountain West, and energized by the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster in Logan County, West Virginia, where 125 people were killed by 130 million gallons of coal slurry that burst through an earthen retention dam. People were tired of coal companies leaving their messes behind, dumping deadly pollution into their communities and putting them at risk for catastrophic disasters.