Pennsylvania's Environmental Revolution

• Author: Franklin L. Kury
• Pages: 19-23

19

Chapter 3: Pennsylvania’s

Environmental Revolution

Pennsylvania’s revolt against a century of braz en exploitation of its natu-

ral resources by the coa l, steel, and rail industries began with the enact-

ment of House Bill 585 in 1965, nally bringing the coa l industry fully

under the Clean Streams Law.

To appreciate Pennsylvania’s environmental revolution, it is necessary to

know the state’s history in the century before the signing of House Bill 585

in 1965.

It started with the Civil War.

Pennsylvania became a bulwa rk of the Union’s economic strength, as well

as its military forces. e great deposits of iron, anthracite, and bituminous

coal became the ba sis for the coa l, steel, and rai lroad industries t hat emerged

to ght the war and then continued for a century to dominate the state’s

economy and politics. Pennsylvania’s government did what the big industries

wanted.

e Pennsylvania Supreme Court starkly revealed the scope of the coal

industry’s sway in a case decided in 1886. In Sanderson v. he Pennsylvania

Coal Company,1 plainti Sanderson, a downstream property owner, asked for

damages to his propert y caused when mine drainage from the defendant’s

anthracite mine polluted the stream Sanderson used as his water supply.

In ruling for the coal company, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court noted

that 30 million tons of anthracite and 70 million tons of bituminous coal

are produced annually in Pennsylvania. Defendant has a right to the natural

use and enjoyment of its property, and if without malice or negligence an

unavoidable loss occurs to a neighbor, there is no legal wrong, the court

concluded. 

Water will accumulate in mi nes and must be disch arged, or minin g must

cease. . . . e defenda nts were engaged in a perfectly law ful business in which

they had made larg e expenditures, a nd in which the interests of t he entire

community were concerned. . . . e pla inti ’s grievance is for a mere per-

sonal inconvenience; and we are of opinion t hat mere private personal incon-

veniences, arising i n this way and under such circumst ances, must yield to the

1. Sanderson v. e Pennsylvania Coal Company, 113 Pa. 126, 6 A. 453 (1886).