Board Temporarily Blocks New Strip Mine
Charleston Gazette
18 November 2010
By Ken Ward Jr.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The state Environmental Quality Board has
temporarily blocked International Coal Group from opening a new strip
mine in Monongalia County, granting a stay until the Sierra Club gets a
full hearing on its appeal of the permit.
EQB members have set aside four full days in mid-December to consider
testimony and arguments over a water pollution permit for ICG
subsidiary Patriot Mining Co.'s New Hill West Mine along Scotts Run
near Cassville.
The appeal is likely to be highly controversial, as it will focus at
least in part on new federal water pollution guidance for Appalachian
strip mines and on potential problems with using coal ash as part of
the mine reclamation plan.
"We're very pleased that the Environmental Quality Board appreciates
the risk of harm that will occur to streams and the environment if the
company is allowed to conduct its proposed mining operations, and that
the board has granted the motion for a stay," said Petra Wood, a Sierra
Club member who lives adjacent to the mine site. "We look forward to
the hearing in December which will show the board all of the problems
with the permit, and that these streams and our community should be
permanently protected."
Roger Nicholson, general counsel for ICG, declined comment on the
board's ruling.
Lawyers for ICG had argued against the stay, saying in legal filings
that the permit approval at issue was simply a modification to expand a
mining site where operations are already ongoing.
Patriot Mining wants to add a new, 225-acre surface mine called New
Hill West. The operation would discharge pollution under a modification
of an existing water quality permit that covers five other adjacent
mine sites.
In their appeal, Sierra Club lawyers argue the state Department of
Environmental Protection wrongly did not perform a "reasonable
potential analysis" of the mine's possible water quality impacts. The
Sierra Club also argues DEP should have included in the permit
additional water discharge limits for electrical conductivity, total
dissolved solids and sulfates.
The Sierra Club said DEP should have considered the mine's potential to
contribute to an outbreak of golden algae, a toxic algae blamed for a
huge fish kill in nearby Dunkard Creek in September 2009.
Also, Sierra Club lawyers say they will present evidence at the hearing
that shows existing mining at the site is already violating state and
federal water quality standards.
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1702.