§ 45-765. Data collection and analysis.

A.  The Department shall require any permittee to establish and maintain appropriate records, make monthly reports to the Department, install, use and maintain any necessary monitoring equipment or methods, evaluate results in accordance with such methods, at such locations, intervals and in such manner as the Department shall prescribe, and provide such other information relative to surface coal mining and reclamation operations as the Department deems reasonable and necessary.

B.  For those surface coal mining and reclamation operations which remove or disturb strata that serve as aquifers which significantly insure the hydrologic balance of water use either on or off the mining site, the Department shall specify:

1.  Monitoring sites to record the quantity and quality of surface drainage above and below the minesite as well as in the potential zone of influence;

2.  Monitoring sites to record level, amount and samples of ground water and aquifers potentially affected by the mining and also directly below the lowermost (deepest) coal seam to be mined;

3.  Records of well logs and borehole data to be maintained; and

4.  Monitoring sites to record precipitation.

The monitoring data collection and analysis required by this section shall be conducted according to standards and procedures set forth by the Department in order to assure their reliability and validity.

Laws 1979, c. 249, § 32, emerg. eff. June 1, 1979.