LC&N sells properties for $11 million
By Peter E. Bortner (staff writer
pbortner@republicanherald.com)
Published: June 5, 2010
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co., a fixture in the anthracite region for many years, has sold its properties in Carbon and Schuylkill counties for $11 million to a Montgomery County real estate corporation.
However, mining operations should soon resume on those properties, the lawyer for the buyer said Friday.
BET Lehigh Real Estate LLC, Horsham, bought the properties, which consist of more than 8,000 acres of coal land, according to the 34-page deed filed Friday in Pottsville.
The deed lists 43 Schuylkill County properties in Coaldale and Tamaqua boroughs and Rush Township, with a total fair market value of $1,071,606.85, as being sold.
It also lists properties in the Carbon County boroughs of Lansford, Nesquehoning and Summit Hill as being sold, although it does not list exactly how many separate parcels of land are included in the sale.
Jeffrey D. Kurtzman, Philadelphia, the lawyer who represents BET, said a second deed was filed Friday in Jim Thorpe for those properties.
Kurtzman said BET will not abandon the properties.
"It will continue to be a mining operation," Kurtzman said.
However, Kurtzman said it will have "completely new management" instead of keeping LC&N's leadership.
LC&N halted mining operations on May 24 after the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection suspended its permit.
DEP said it shut down LC&N because the company has engaged in illegal mining practices, violated water quality standards and failed to reclaim mined lands, thereby endangering the public.
DEP said it cited LC&N twice this year for trying to develop unpermitted and unbonded mine pits.
LC&N officials contested DEP's ruling, saying there were no active violations and it has tried to fix all problems to which DEP referred. That appeal is pending before the state Environmental Hearing Board.
Kurtzman said BET has applied to DEP for a new mining permit, which the department is considering.
"We expect that it will (issue the permit)," Kurtzman said of DEP. "That is in process."
BET has the same address, 250 Gibraltar Road, as The Bruce and Robbie Toll Foundation, one of the creditors on whose behalf Kurtzman filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition on July 15, 2008, against LC&N.
Friday's deeds were filed as the result of a May 28 order filed by U.S. Chief Bankruptcy Judge John J. Thomas, Wilkes-Barre, who has presided over LC&N's case.
"BET is a buyer in good faith," Thomas wrote in approving the sale of LC&N's property to it.
LC&N officials could not be reached Friday for comment on the sale or the company's future.
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