The state Department of Environmental Protection will hold a public meeting next month to review a 3,852-acre permit expansion application for Consol Energy Co.'s Blacksville No. 2 mine in southern Greene County. The expansion could subside two streams.

Roberts Run and Blockhouse Run, plus several unnamed tributaries, are part of the Dunkard Creek watershed in rural, mostly agricultural Jackson and Gilmore townships. Dunkard Creek is a tributary of the Monongahela River.

"We don't like to see streams or groundwater impacted by mining," said Terri Davin, president of the Greene County Watershed Alliance, an all-volunteer, grass-roots organization started in 2001.

The permit application states that Consol would "perform stream restoration as may be necessary," but Ms. Davin said she hasn't seen that successfully done in other areas of Greene County impacted by mining.

"I'd love to have successful stream restoration, but in October I was up in the Wheeling Creek watershed and visited five streams that had been undermined and were dry as a bone," she said. "To say their mitigation was successful, well, I haven't seen it."

The Blacksville No. 2 mine, which extends from southern Greene County into West Virginia and has portals there, employs approximately 500. The company is seeking permission to conduct full extraction mining in the Pittsburgh coal seam, 900 to 1,100 feet below the surface.

Part of the expansion is an addition of 3,172 acres to the mine's subsidence control plan area for longwall mining, a full extraction technique that results in surface subsidence of up to 4 feet.

The meeting, scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Gilmore Township Building in New Freeport, Greene County, is the public's lone opportunity to hear from DEP's mining operations staff about the proposed 20 percent expansion of the 17,563-acre mine, which produces about 5 million tons of coal a year. Consol is the largest underground coal mining company in the nation with 15 mining operations in six states.

The meeting also is an opportunity for people to submit written and oral testimony that will be placed on the public record.

Because the proposed mining expansion is in an "environmental justice area" where more than 21 percent of the population is at or below the poverty level, the DEP must increase its community outreach efforts. It has mailed information on the proposed mine permit expansion to all 68 surface property owners in the area.

Ms. Davin was critical of the DEP for scheduling a meeting on a mine permit in the middle of the day when most people will be at work.

"We've made this comment on other permits and don't understand why, especially in an environmental justice area, this meeting is scheduled in the middle of the workday when people would have to take a half day off work to attend," she said. "It should be held after work to make it convenient for people to stop in on their way home from work."

Ron Ruman, a DEP spokesman, said the meeting, officially termed an "informal public conference," will be audio recorded to capture public comments but no stenographer will be used to produce a written record.

Anyone wishing to submit written comments can do so at the meeting or by mail to the DEP bureau of District Mining Operations California District Office, 25 Technology Drive, California Technology Park, Coal Center, PA 15432.

Those wishing to review the application at that office can schedule an appointment to do so by calling 724-769-1100.