Dispatch reports that this past Wednesday, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in a 6-1 vote that coal worth $2 million could be stripped from part of a 651-acre section of the Brush Creek Wildlife Area in eastern Ohio's Jefferson County. This ruling could clear the way for the strip mining of many of Ohio's state parks, forests, and wildlife areas.

According to Think Progress, the 651-acre territory is currently owned by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR). The ruling itself settles a dispute involving a land contract from 1944, which transferred the territory from landowners to the Department of Natural Resources.

In an earlier ruling, the state claimed that land could not be strip mined unless it was explicitly permitted in a land contract.

However, there were some who wanted to find a way around that claim. The appellants in this case were Ron Snyder and Steven Neeley, who went to the Supreme Court arguing that the only way to get at the coal in the wildlife area was strip mine.

The Supreme Court took a closer look at the 1944 contract, and found that when the 1944 contract was transferred from owners to the ODNR, the seller reserved "all mineral rights, including rights of ingress and egress and reasonable surface right privilege."

Because of this, the monumental 6-1 decision was made despite the ODNR's warnings that adverse ruling could open more state wildlife and parks to surface mining. ODNR spokeswoman Bethany McCorkle commented, "Depending on how the state acquired land will determine to what extent this decision impacts ODNR property... In many cases, the surface land was given to the state but not the coal mineral rights," conveying the complexity of the issue.

McCorkle continued, "ODNR is disappointed by the Supreme Court's decision, which ignored substantial precedent as to this issue... Based on this decision ODNR intends to review all of its deeds to confirm what other surface disturbances, if any, are possible as a result of this outcome."

Justice Terrence O'Donnell was the only justice who dissented during the vote. In his opinion, "The right to 'use' the surface cannot reasonable be construed as the right to destroy it."