PennFuture, Friends of Dunkard Creek File Appeal on Mine Water
Treatment Permit Allowing Dirty Water to Be Released into Creek
Permit Changed without Public Notice
Business Wire
4 January 2010
HARRISBURG, Pa.--Attorneys with Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future
(PennFuture) last week filed an appeal before the Environmental Hearing
Board challenging an amendment to the permit for the Shannopin Mine
Dewatering Project. The appeal was filed on behalf of Friends of
Dunkard Creek, as well as PennFuture.
“In March, DEP’s water quality experts recommended that more stringent
water quality limits be included in the renewal of the discharge permit
for the Shannopin Project, which is now nearly sixteen months overdue”
The Shannopin Mine Dewatering Project, which was designed to prevent a
catastrophic breakout of acid mine water from the abandoned Shannopin
Mine into Dunkard Creek, was originally granted a permit allowing less
stringent cleanup of the dangerous water. The challenged permit
amendment, for which no public notice was given, would allow the
project to collect water from Consolidation Coal Company’s (Consol)
permitted Humphrey No. 7 Mine, where no breakout risk exists, and to
treat that water to the less than optimal cleanup allowed in the
original emergency situation. The permit amendment was granted by the
Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Mining Program despite a
finding nine months before by a DEP biologist that the Shannopin
Project’s discharge into Dunkard Creek contained high levels of Total
Dissolved Solids (TDS) and other pollutants, which were causing harm to
aquatic life in the creek. The permit amendment was issued two months
after a massive kill of fish, mussels, and salamanders occurred in more
than 40 miles of Dunkard Creek.
“The lax water cleanup standards were allowed originally to avert an
emergency – an impending breakout of acid mine pollution from the
abandoned Shannopin Mine that would have severely polluted miles of
Dunkard Creek and the Monongahela River,” said PennFuture Senior
Attorney Kurt Weist. “The relaxed standards do not apply to the water
being pumped from Consol’s permitted Humphrey No. 7 Mine, which is not
being done to avert a disaster, but to allow mining of the coal
reserves above the Humphrey Mine.
“In March, DEP’s water quality experts recommended that more stringent
water quality limits be included in the renewal of the discharge permit
for the Shannopin Project, which is now nearly sixteen months overdue,”
continued Weist. “It obviously is unreasonable to issue an amendment
allowing another source of mine drainage to be connected to the
Shannopin Project’s treatment system before DEP renews the existing
permit and puts the more protective limits into effect.”
Jim O’Connell of Friends of Dunkard Creek agreed, “How anyone could
have granted this permit revision after the destruction we experienced
last summer is beyond me. And you can bet that if there had been any
public notice, DEP would have heard our objections loud and clear. It’s
time to reverse this backroom deal and clean up the water.”
A copy of the appeal filed by PennFuture is online at http://www.pennfuture.org/userfiles10/CalvinRunNOAwithoutattachments.pdf