DEP Revokes Amendment, Must Pay Legal Fees
Washington PA Observer-Reporter
3 April 2010
The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board has ordered the state to
pay legal fees of two environmental groups that challenged an amendment
to the pollution discharge permit for the Shannopin Mine water
treatment plant.
The board issued the order after DEP revoked the amendment, which would
allow the treatment plant to accept additional water from the Humphrey
No. 7 Mine pool without treating it for total dissolved solids and
other pollutants.
"DEP did the right thing by acknowledging the errors raised in our
appeal and revoking the permit revision for the proposed Calvin Run
pumping operation," said Kurt Weist, senior attorney for Citizens for
Pennsylvania's Future, which filed the appeal with the Friends of
Dunkard Creek.
"That revocation is important because it prevents the pumping of
additional high-TDS mine drainage out of Consol's Humphrey Mine and
into Dunkard Creek," he said. According to the hearing board's order,
DEP must pay $20,000 in legal fees to PennFuture.
The groups filed the appeal in January challenging a permit amendment
granted Nov. 30 by DEP for AMD Reclamation Inc.'s Shannopin treatment
plant. They maintained the amendment was approved by the DEP without
public notice.
AMD built the plant in 2003 with state funding to treat polluted water
from the abandoned Shannopin Mine. Acidic water in the mine had reached
a level at which it could breach the surface and pollute Dunkard Creek.
The groups maintained the amendment would allow the plant to take
additional water from Consol Energy's Humphrey No. 7 Mine, where no
breakout risk exists, and to treat that water only minimally before
discharging it into Dunkard Creek.
The permit amendment was granted by DEP despite a finding nine months
earlier by a DEP biologist that the Shannopin plant's discharge into
Dunkard Creek contained high levels of sulfates and total dissolved
solids and had damaged aquatic life in the stream.
Approval of the amendment also came two months after a massive fish
kill on more than 40 miles of Dunkard Creek upstream from the treatment
plant.
The Shannopin plant cannot treat for total dissolved solids and was
originally issued a permit to discharge mine water under less
restrictive standards because of the threatening breakout.
The renewal of the plant's discharge permit is now more than 18 months
overdue, the groups said. DEP's water quality experts earlier
recommended more stringent water quality limits be included in the
permit renewal.
"The only reason mine drainage from Consol's Humphrey Mine makes its
way into Dunkard Creek is that DEP allowed it to be transferred into
the Shannopin Mine," said Jim O'Connell of the Friends of Dunkard Creek.
DEP in 2005, without public notice, authorized the transfer of nearly 6
million gallons of mine drainage a day into the Shannopin Mine from the
Humphrey mine pool.
"Until the Shannopin Project's discharge meets the more stringent
contaminant limits recommended a year ago, DEP should minimize the
damage by shutting down the transfer of water from Humphrey to
Shannopin and reducing the amount of water pumped from the Shannopin
Mine into Dunkard Creek," O'Connell said.
DEP documents indicate Shannopin pumps could be shut off for almost 10
years before an outbreak would occur and the only reason the pumps
operate at current levels is to handle water transferred from Humphrey,
the groups claim.
"The sole purpose for that transfer is to allow the mining of coal
reserves above the Humphrey Mine," O'Connell said.
AMD Reclamation is a nonprofit corporation formed by GenPower LLC, the
company that developed the Longview Power Plant in Monongalia County,
W.Va., and Dana Mining Co.
AMD constructed the plant not only to prevent a break out of acidic
mine water from Shannopin but also to allow Dana to mine Sewickley seam
coal above the Pittsburgh seam that had been mined by Shannopin.
AMD's application for the permit amendment to DEP stated the plan would
assist in controlling the Humphrey mine pool and would allow for mining
of the Sewickley seam coal by Dana in the area of the Humphrey Mine.
A DEP spokesman not be reached Friday for comment.