30 U.S.C. § 1307
Section 1307 · Water rights and replacement
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 8 court decisions — leading case 195 W. Va. 726 - Rose v. Oneida Coal Co., Inc. (1995)
Most recently applied in 209 W. Va. 644 - Antco, Inc. v. Dodge Fuel Corp. (July 2001)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as affecting in any way the right of any person to enforce or protect, under applicable law, his interest in water resources affected by a surface coal mining operation.
(b) The operator of a surface coal mine shall replace the water supply of an owner of interest in real property who obtains all or part of his supply of water for domestic, agricultural, industrial, or other legitimate use from an underground or surface source where such supply has been affected by contamination, diminution, or interruption proximately resulting from such surface coal mine operation.