
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 25, 1995                   TAG: 9505260017
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORTON                                LENGTH: Medium

MINE RECLAMATION CHIEF WARNS AGAINST PROPOSED BUDGET CUTS

The director of the Office of Surface Mining warned during a visit to a mine where flooding killed a Virginia woman that proposed federal budget cuts will harm efforts to make inactive mines safe.

``I think it would be a signal to wildcatters and outlaw operators to come back to the coal business,'' Director Robert Uram said. ``We are concerned about that, and are trying to explain to Congress that it will hurt the states and the families in the coalfields.''

President Clinton has proposed maintaining the office's funding at $292 million in 1996 and increase funding for state reclamation grants by $11 million.

The resolution approved by the Senate Budget Committee and considered by the full Senate again Wednesday spares the agency, Uram said. But the House Appropriations Committee recommended a $52 million decrease in funding.

Uram said the office, which had 1,261 employees in 1989, has been reducing costs and plans to cut its work force to 951 next year.

``We've eliminated a lot of senior managers,'' he said. ``We've pushed decision-making out to the field.

But he said the federal agency no longer could maintain the emergency abandoned mine land program or its key performance evaluation role if funding reductions proposed by the House committee are adopted.

Uram said 1.5 million acres has been mined and reclaimed over the years, and thousands of acres of abandoned lands have been made safe under the Abandoned Mine Land program.

Uram said he came to Dominion Coal Co.'s No. 5 mine in Buchanan County on Tuesday to learn more about they kind of accident that killed Tammie Givens on May 13.

Water blew out of a sealed opening at the mine and flowed down a hillside, uprooting trees and a road and flooding the 25-year-old woman's home 200 feet away. The water undermined the foundation as the house was being evacuated, and she was trapped and drowned after the floor collapsed, officials said.

Uram sent an advisory to state, regional and national coal mining associations last week asking for help in preventing such blowouts.

by CNB