Project Gallery
North Fork #4 Imboden Mine
Client: Harlan Reclamation Services—Lynch, Kentucky
Harlan Reclamation Services contracted Summit Engineering to amend the existing permit to add an additional 11,144 acres of underground. This particular project presented a number of unique challenges. The large acreage necessitated a thorough and tedious investigation to identify overlying structures, streams, wells, utilities, roads, adjacent mines, and other facilities in order to accurately locate and map these features.
Complicating this process further was the fact that the Imboden coal seam underlies the historic city of Lynch, Kentucky as well as the primary water source and storage area for the City of Lynch, municipal water system. This system consists of surface water intakes in Looney Creek and Gap Branch which route surface water into an abandoned underground mine void in the Darby coal seam.
A detailed subsidence control plan was required to assure that the proposed mining operation would not cause material damage to structures on the surface or adversely affect overlying cultural and historic resources or hydrologic resources.
As a result of our persistence and expertise, Summit was successful in the effort to compile all the necessary information and develop an innovative subsidence control plan to adequately address all of the concerns raised during the public comment period and the permit review. Approval of this permit increased the mineable reserve within the permit boundary by approximately 50,000,000 tons and extended the proposed life of this mine approximately 40 years.
