SOCM has a long history of organizing around destruction caused by strip mining of coal. A more recent and virtually unregulated threat is large-scale surface mining for commercial rock harvesting, literally taking up fieldstone on the surface and just beneath the surface of the land to sell in large urban markets for landscaping and housing construction. Many problems associated with strip mining of coal are similar to strip mining of this surface fieldstone including soil erosion and pollution of streams.

Just as with coal, the problem is made even more acute when surface owners of land don’t own the minerals beneath their own property. Heavy machinery shows up one day and starts scraping away the surface and hauling off the stone. SOCM member Landon Medley comments, “The surface owner and adjacent property owners have no say. The company can come on your property without any notice and begin mining your yard and fields. No consent of the surface owner is required.”

Commercial rock harvesting is unregulated in Tennessee, specifically excluded from the state “non-coal” surface mining law. No mining permit, reclamation plan, bonding or other basic mining regulations are required.

Large-scale commercial rock harvesting on large tracts of land is relatively recent. In the early 2000’s SOCM members on the Cumberland Plateau found many smaller companies “mining streams for rock,” moving heavy equipment into streams to load up rocks, permanently disrupting and changing stream flow. Led by members of the South Cumberland chapter, SOCM succeeded in negotiating an agreement with the state to issue a moratorium on creek rock mining, a moratorium that currently stands.

State-owned land, where surface and minerals are separate, is not exempt from current commercial rock harvesting. In 2007 commercial rock harvesters mined right through a portion of the Cumberland Trail State Park in Hamilton County. The state sued in Hamilton County to stop the mining. The Hamilton County Judge dismissed the case. The state appealed and14 Tennessee organizations, including SOCM, filed an amicus brief in support of the state. A Court of Appeals decision in June, 2008 set encouraging precedent and sent the case back to Hamilton Country for trial.

Legal questions around this mining include whether rock is included in the definition of “mineral” in common mineral exclusion deeds and the intention of the parties at the time of separation of surface and minerals. In the late 1970’s SOCM won a state legislative bill requiring consent of the surface owner when, at the time of original separation of surface and minerals, the surface owner could not have foreseen strip mining as a method of mining. That legislation, however, applied only to coal strip mining. Another legal question is whether mineral owners can destroy the surface value of property.

“Fieldstone is not mentioned specifically in mineral deeds,” says Landon Medley, “and this kind of commercial harvesting of fieldstone right off the surface of property couldn’t have been imagined. We are also concerned about the potential of mineral owners claiming they own streambed stones as well.”

SOCM is working for regulation of the effects of commercial rock harvesting anywhere in Tennessee, regulation that could have state-wide impact, as well as working through legal and legislative arenas for the rights of surface owners to have a say about what happens on their own land.

See the Strip Mine Issues Committee page for more information about SOCM's work on this issue.