With visions of polluted streams and mutilated mountain sides in Appalachia,¹ Congress enacted the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA),² to impose uniform federal reclamation standards on surface coal mining operations. The standards are to be enforced primarily by the states with backup authority by the Department of the Interior. In addition, the Act provides numerous and unique opportunities for public participation in the regulatory process.

Though the implementation of the Act was turbulent at the outset, federal and state management agencies seem generally to have become accustomed to the Act's requirements and to have achieved a working relationship with each other.³ On the other hand, a number of aspects of the statute have yet to be implemented fully or are subject to serious questions as to their constitutionality. Both of these characteristics apply to §522,⁴ which permits federal and state authorities to designate lands as unsuitable for surface coal mining if reclamation is not feasible, if mining operations are incompatible with existing land use plans, or if surface mining would degrade valuable natural areas, and it allows citizen petitions to designate unsuitable lands. Recent developments on the administrative and judicial levels demonstrate how the unsuitability designation process operates, as well as the nature of the legal issues surrounding §522.