Group: CONSOL Settles Pollution Case
Morgantown Dominion Post
17 September 2010
Associated Press
CHARLESTON — Coal and natural gas producer CONSOL Energy has agreed to
strengthen pollution controls at a southern West Virginia surface mine
to settle an environmental lawsuit, the Sierra Club said Thursday.
The agreement calls for CONSOL’s Powellton Coal subsidiary to cut
discharges of aluminum, iron and other pollutants into tributaries of
the Gauley River from the Bridge Fork mining complex in Fayette County.
The deal also calls for a $1.2 million donation to WVU College of Law
and $134,000 in federal fines, among other things.
‘‘It’s about time Powellton faced up to its responsibility to clean up
its own mess,’’ Sierra Club spokesman Jim Sconyers said in a statement.
The Gauley is a popular river among whitewater rafters.
‘‘This is a great victory not only for the streams that we depend on,
but also for the Gauley River National Recreation Area and the New
River National River,’’ said Beverly Walkup, secretary of the Ansted
Historic Preservation Council, which brought the lawsuit with the
Sierra Club in 2008.
A CONSOL spokesman did not immediately return a telephone message.
The donation to WVU is supposed to help create a clinic to provide
legal help to communities that want to protect the New and Gauley
watersheds, the Sierra Club said. Among other things, the clinic is
supposed to help land trusts acquire conservation easements and work on
residential sewage problems.
The agreement also would increase future values to $2,000 per violation
in the first year of the agreement to as high as $12,000 in the third
year.
CONSOL SETTLEMENT
The deal calls for a $1.2 million donation to WVU College of Law, which
is supposed to help create a clinic to provide legal help to
communities that want to protect the New and Gauley watersheds, the
Sierra Club said.