Regulators in Appalachia are worried that coal companies forced into bankruptcy won’t have enough money to pay for reclaiming stripped mountain tops and polluted rivers, leaving taxpayers to pick up at least some of the tab.

According to an article in纽约时报, cleanup costs could amount to $1 billion. While the industry says that its cleanup plans are financially sound, states such as West Virginia aren’t so sure.

There, the state has brought in an outside lawyer, Kevin Barrett, and named him a special assistant attorney general as it wrangles with Alpha Natural Resources over its legal obligations for cleanups. Alpha, now in bankruptcy, plans to earmark a total of $209 million for cleanup in five states, including West Virginia, but Barrett doesn’t think that’s enough money. Another problem: Alpha is depending on future coal sales to add to the pool, but the industry doesn’t show much potential for that.

Alpha borrowed heavily to buy Massey Energy in 2011, but when the coal market collapsed, Alpha was forced by its debt to seek bankruptcy protection. The same factors — low natural gas prices that ate into sales, tougher environmental regulations, and slumping sales in China — also have affected other coal companies. Peabody Energy, the world’s biggest private-sector coal producer,在4月份提起破产after losing $2 billion last year.

西弗吉尼亚州的问题尤其剧烈。The Times说，许多煤矿预定近，环境修复将成本高昂。剥离山顶的损坏距离煤炭接缝可以广泛。

“目标是确保煤炭公司离开时清理混乱，”巴雷特告诉该报。

Finances are often tangled

国会通过1977年的表面采矿控制和回收法案，作为确保煤炭公司不会摆脱煤炭公司的财务责任，即使他们的腹部也是如此。公司被要求购买将支付填海费的债券，但其中一些国家（包括西弗吉尼亚）允许大型矿业公司“自我债券”，这意味着他们承诺支付填海费，但实际上并不需要购买债券。

皮博迪在自我债券中的清理义务中有近14亿美元，而Arch Coal和Alpha的自我粘贴负债分别为4.85亿美元和6.4亿美元，华盛顿邮政报告。

Alpha is now planning to buy bonds or come up with other collateral to replace most of its $240 million in self-bonds in West Virginia, but that will still leave $100 million in obligations that are not bonded,The Times说。在怀俄明中，阿尔法说，它希望用担保债券或其他抵押品替换4亿美元的所有4亿美元。

与此同时，监管机构正在尝试新的策略来解开陷入困境的公司的复杂金融基础，并确保有足够的资金来支付填海费。在西弗吉尼亚州，他们正在接近持有煤炭公司贷款的银行，希望他们能够影响公司如何花费其现金用品。

但这项工作可能很艰难。Barrett去了法庭上所谓的“第一留置权者”名单，在alpha声称它不知道他们是谁之前，在别人之前获得了报酬。Barrett Shopoened Citnorp，贷款人的代理商，获取名称，但它需要一个以上的Citicorp来提出清单。

A number of smaller coal companies already have defaulted on cleanup obligations, leaving abandoned strip mines and topped mountains in their wake. In addition to being just plain ugly, old mines also can leach toxic wastes into streams and groundwater.

破产律师的史蒂夫·贾科沃斯基共享Barrett的担忧，即自我束缚承诺将不足以支付环境清理费用。他告诉私人粘接帖子，“不值得这篇文章”。

The Sierra Club says that 232 coal plants in the U.S. have been closed or scheduled to close since 2010 as the industry’s influence and share of the energy market continue their decline. “The coal industry fundamentals remain very bleak in my opinion,” Matthew Miller, a coal industry analyst with S&P Global Market Intelligence, says in apost at the Sierra Club’s website。“If there is a light at the end of the tunnel, we can’t see it yet.”