A coal company has laid off 200 miners in Pennsylvania because of a state environmental ruling that limits mining beneath a park creek in western Pennsylvania.
CNX Coal Resources, a spinoff of Consol Energy, issued the temporary layoff notices Tuesday at its Bailey Mine complex.
The company is contesting last month's ruling by the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board restricting mining within 100 feet of Kent Run, a stream in Ryerson Station State Park.
The companies say the stream buffer would mean leaving 360,000 tons of coal worth more than $15 million in the ground.
The state Department of Environmental Resources sued Consol claiming longwall mining caused a dam at Ryerson to leak, forcing the agency to drain Duke Lake in 2005. The parties settled in 2013.
