1. Assume you are the director of the State Department of Mining and Reclamation and were informed of the findings on the new samples versus the old samples. What actions would you direct your staff to take concerning this situation?
2. Suppose there had been several cases of deceptive acts similar to this one over the last few years. What type of “audit” procedures might you want implemented to identify these possibly unethical activities?
3. Yucatan clearly would state that both the old and new samples were randomly located about the entire mining area. When the 30 lowest pH samples were used to establish the new baseline, were the samples still random, according to experimental design standards? If so, why? If not, why not?
4. You and the president of Yucatan Mining have been acquaintances for some years. You have golfed together several times, your and his children are on the same soccer team at school, and your families are members of the same community swimming pool club. What effect would this event have upon your and your family’s relationships with the family of the Yucatan president? How would you handle this situation?
5. As a matter of principle and practice, do you believe there is some amount of data-altering or bias-making that is allowed before an application (such as the one described here) should be considered the result of professionally unethical acts? How would you define such a threshold limit?
Contributed by Dr. Paul Askenasy, Agronomist, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Background
Surface mining of coal is the removal of soil and sediments from underlying strata that lie above the material to be mined. The law requires that land disturbed by these types of mining activities be returned to a productive capacity that is as good as or better than its productive capacity before mining.
The productive capacity of soils is directly correlated to the textural (sand, silt, and clay content) and chemical characteristics of the soil (e.g., pH). To this end, mining companies must sample the different soils found in the areas to be disturbed by mining activities. The purpose of the sampling is to establish a baseline characterizing the textural and chemical makeup of the soils prior to mining. Soils in a low pH range (pH values < 5) are indicative of low fertility. Once the natural resource, such as coal, is removed, the pit is backfilled with sediments and the terrain surface is contoured to reestablish the premine drainages. To meet the baseline for pH, the acreage of the mine soils with low pH should not exceed the acreage of the unmined soils with low pH.
Information
Yucatan Mining Company (not the actual name) planned to disturb 600 acres due to mining activities. The different soils within the 600 acres were depicted in the County Soil Survey where the mining activities were to take place. Prior to mining, the company obtained soil samples from 10 different locations within each soil type and had them analyzed for a number of parameters including pH. Assessment of the data indicated that 30% of the area (180 acres) occupied by the soils in the area to be disturbed had pH values between 4.0 and 4.9. The application for mining was approved by the State Department of Mining and Reclamation.
Six years later, 450 acres had been mined and the terrain surface had been leveled to reestablish premine slopes. Of the 450 acres leveled, 175 acres had pH values between 4.0 and 4.9. The president of Yucatan indicated that the company would submit a revised soil baseline based on new sampling in the remaining 150 acres of unmined soils because, in his opinion, the first soil baseline was biased.
The request to do more soil analyses to augment their existing soil baseline was approved. The company quickly hired a consultant to develop the new baseline, and subsequently Yucatan submitted the final report from its consultant to the State Department of Mining and Reclamation. This revised premine soil baseline indicated that 45% of the premine soils had pH values between 4.0 and 4.9. Comparative results between the old and new samples can be expressed as follows:
A rough statistical check between the old and revised soil baselines indicated that the results were mixed. Based on this preliminary result and the fact that there was a significant increase in the percent of area with low-productivity soil, an in-depth analysis of the revised baseline sample study was performed. Contained in the submitted new-sample package was a letter from the Yucatan consultant. It indicated to Yucatan’s management that 100 separate soil samples had been obtained and analyzed and that the revised premine soil baseline had been developed using the data from the 30 samples with the lowest pH values.
The State Department of Mining and Reclamation staff concluded that the revised soil pH sample data had been carefully “screened” to reduce the amount of remediation work that Yucatan Mining would have to complete. Within a week, Yucatan was notified that further review of the revised soil baseline could not be pursued, because it appeared the revised soil baseline was developed using a technique that skewed results in favor of lower pH values. It was also noted that should Yucatan Mining disagree with this response, the case would be filed with the legal staff as a contested case. Within several days, the Yucatan president responded indicating that the company was withdrawing the new application from consideration by the department.
