Ann and Mike Tatum won one for the little guy when
they convinced a Colorado judge that a coal mining company damaged
their second home in Weston, Colo. Last December, Las Animas County
District Court ordered Basin Resources to pay the Tatums $160,000
for cracks that appeared in their walls after the company tunneled
nearby.
It’s unusual for a citizen to take on
the coal company and stick with it, says Carolyn Johnson of the
Citizens Coal Council. “But hopefully,” she says, “this will bring
more people out.”
The Tatums, residents of
Houston, Texas, first noticed the cracks in 1991. Concerned that
the damage was caused by nearby underground mines, they took their
complaint first to the Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology,
then to the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining,
the agency responsible for holding mining companies accountable for
such damage. But officials told them repeatedly that the damage was
not due to the mine.
“I’ve
seen a lot of subsidence,” says Mike Rosenthal of the Office of
Surface Mining’s Denver office. “I saw none of the usual signs in
this case.”
The Tatums decided to sue Basin
Resources, arguing that the Office of Surface Mining was biased
against citizens and was using the wrong tools to measure
subsidence. Now, after their victory in the state court, the Tatums
are appealing their case to the Department of Interior Board of
Land Appeals, trying to overturn the ruling by the Office of
Surface Mining that subsidence did not affect the house. It’s a
matter of principle, says Ann Tatum.
She says
taking on a company like Basin Resources, a subsidiary of Montana
Power Company, is expensive and intimidating. “I’ve made a lot of
enemies and I’m proud of it,” she says, “because somebody has to
make these mines accountable.”
For more
information, contact Ann Tatum, 8703 Bon Homme, Houston TX 77074
(713/995-7045); Carolyn Johnson, Citizens Coal Council, 1705 S.
Pearl, Room 5, Denver, CO 80210 (303/722-9119); Mike Rosenthal,
Colorado Office of Surface Mining,
303/844-1453.
” Jennifer
Chergo
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Citizens tackle a mining company.
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