For 27 years OU asked that the watershed buffer zone, a scientifically dilineated area protecting the geological and hydrological features that Dysart Woods depends upon, be protected from deep or surface mining. Graduate Student Senate, Student Senate and Faculty Senate have all called for the protection of this watershed buffer zone. OU leading scientists have called for the protection of this watershed buffer zonel. But OU's Lands Unsuitable for Mining Petition soon to be submitted to the Ohio Division of Mines and Reclamations is twelve times smaller than the buffer zone that OU has been requesting be protected for 27 years. Further, it is a simple linear distance totally baseless in science.
OU's document showing two proposed smaller buffer zones, which was prepared by OU Facilities Planning Director John Kotowski, clearly indicates the amount of coal and the cost as the only variables of consideration in the two buffer zones. When Kister asked Kotowski April 17, "What do the facts about the amount of coal and the cost have to with Dysart Woods and OU's interest in protecting Dysart Woods?" Kotowski said , "it has nothing to do with our interests, it is just facts." But it is the only facts mentioned in OU's decision-making paper.
The first buffer zone listed is the smallest - 1,000 feet from the old-growth forest sections of Dysart Woods. It is only "350 to 375 acres" and does not even cover about a third of the 455 acre Dysart Woods nature preserve that OU owns! Yet it appears OU is choosing this option. The only other listings of information on the map other than the size is the amount of coal and its value. For the first proposal, the amount of coal is 2.45 to 2.6 million tons of coal "valued between $53.9" million "and $57.2" million. The second is 1,285 feet from the old-growth forest. It would add an additional 106 acres to the first proposal. It would add an additional 725,000 tons of and "an additional $16" million.
"OU's proposed buffer zone ignores the watershed of the ancient forest and doesn't even protect a third of the Dysart Woods nature preserve area," Kister said. "OU is selling out Dysart Woods for the profits of Ohio Valley Coal Co. at the expense of the virgin forest that OU owns and is legally pledged to protect."
OU's documents reveal that OU's attorney instructed their hired consultant to remove sections dealing with Mary Stoertz, OU's own scientist who drafted the watershed buffer zone that OU turned in July 9, 1997 – just last summer – as OU's proposed buffer zone.
OU's attorney, David Northrop last summer called for protecting this full watershed buffer zone. On Feb. 24 this year Northrop issued a letter to OU's scientific consultant for Dysart Woods, Richard Parizek of Penn State university, asking that he "delete the references to Mary Stoertz' work. We are requesting a 1,000 foot buffer zone around the boundaries of the old-growth forest area."
That means OU is only asking for a 350 to 375 acre buffer zone, 12 times smaller than the watershed buffer zone that OU President Robert Glidden said he supported protecting at OU's Faculty Senate meeting October 20, 1997 (Kister has it on tape), and that Faculty Senate voted with a 96 percent majority to endorse protecting with a strong motion (also available from Kister). Student Senate and Graduate Student Senate also passed motions asking that this buffer zone be protected from mining. Thousands of letters have been sent to the ODMR, Governor George Voinovich and Glidden asking that they protect the watershed buffer zone from mining.
The part that Northrop asked Parizek to delete reads, "Mining to the surface drainage basin limit on Dr. M. Stoertz's topographic map could impact the eastern most tributary drainage channel but should not influence surface runoff to either ephemeral stream channels provided that mining were to be restricted to her outline marked Sensitive Area Limit. This 1,200 foot sensitive area (beyond the watershed) limit offset line is within the limit of control and mining affected streams defined by Tieman and Rauch (1987)." Thus, Parizek endorsed Stoertz's watershed buffer zone that is 12 times larger than OU's currently proposed buffer zone, but OU's attorney ordered him to delete this section.
OU is suppressing its own researchers to further the aims of the coal company. OU is deciding the fate of Dysart Woods based on the bottom line of Ohio Valley Coal Co. In gross violation of its legal committment to protect Dysart Woods. For more than a quarter century OU has successfully fought off mining threats to the buffer zone. We cannot tolerate the destruction of the last .004 percent of the ancient forest remaining in Ohio.
Further, Moyd Ahmed, who scientifically delineated the original watershed buffer zone, wrote to OU administrators this past December asking that they support the Buckeye Forest Council's Petition for Lands Unsuitable for Mining which would protect the full 4,170 acre watershed buffer zone based in part on Ahmed's studies.
The OU Campus Greens, Student Senate and a dozen other student organizations requested in January that OU have a public hearing on the decision to cut the buffer zone so massively, but OU has refused, acting instead like a private corporation. Kister has asked top administrators every week since January for a public hearing, but again they refused. Kister asked within the allotted time to be on the Board of Trustees meeting agenda but OU refused.
OU must protect the watershed buffer zone to fulfill the university's legal obligation to preserve Dysart Woods in perpetuity. OU Plant Biology Professor Brian McCarthy emailed Kister April 17, in the meetings with OU administrators, "I have continued to argue for the watershed buffer because this is the only one that makes logical 'scientific sense' to me. However, I sit on these committees only as an 'ecological consultant.' I am not the person handling, signing, or supporting the paperwork. So, philosophically, I agree with you regarding the watershed buffer"