Sierra Club Wins Stay at New Hill Site
State board will hear case for area mine permit in December
Morgantown Dominion Post
21 November 2010
By David Beard
The Sierra Club has succeeded in obtaining a stay on the issuance of
Patriot Mining Co.’s water discharge permit for its New Hill surface
mine expansion.
The state Environmental Quality Board (EQB) voted 4-1 to grant the stay
of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit.
The EQB set Dec. 14-17 to hear evidence in the case.
Petra Wood, a Sierra Club member and neighbor of the Cassville mine, is
pleased with the ruling.
“Without the stay, mining would have started on the new mine and more
environmental degradation would have begun before the Sierra Club even
had a chance to present its case, at the hearing in December, that the
permit does not adequately protect the environment.”
A spokesman for International Coal Group, Patriot’s parent company, did
not respond in time for this report.
Patriot Coal wants to expand its New Hill Mine by 225 acres.
As previously reported in The Dominion Post, Sierra Club
appealed the NPDES permit in September, saying the expansion will
discharge pollutants into an unnamed tributary of Scotts Run and,
ultimately, into the Monongahela River.
The club also contends, among other things, that the Department of
Environmental Protection failed to perform the required analysis of
potential pollutants — heavy metals and other toxins possibly contained
in mine runoff and fly ash — and failed to set pollutant discharge
limits based on the analysis.
It cites the potential to contribute to an outbreak of golden algae —
like one that killed the fish and mussels in Dunkard Creek in the
summer of 2009.
Patriot applies fly ash, derived from coal combustion, to prevent acid
mine drainage. The appeal seeks to have the permit rescinded or
modified to include limits.
Sierra Club then filed a motion Wednesday for a stay of the permit. The
application said Patriot planned to begin blasting “from sunrise to
sunset” Thursday, continuing through Nov. 18, 2011.
The club contended granting the permit would deny it the right to a
meaningful permit review.
Jackson Kelly PLLC attorney Robert McClusky, representing Patriot,
contended that the site has been mined and reclaimed with fly ash for
years, and the permit in question is merely a modification of the
existing NPDES permit.
“Recent sampling of the primary receiving stream,” he wrote in a
statement, “shows that past mining has had no significant adverse
impact to the receiving waters.”
Therefore, Sierra Club can show no undue burden or irreparable harm to
justify the stay.
McClusky noted that Patriot’s activities have in fact caused “a
downward trend” in runoff flow and pollutant loading. Also, Patriot
seeks to relocate its pond and cover old mine areas with fly ash, and
the DEP concludes that will further reduce pollution.
The EQB sided with the Sierra Club, saying it “demonstrated that the
environment will suffer irreparable harm and an unjust hardship if a
stay is denied.” Patriot, meanwhile, failed to support its contention
that it would suffer financial harm if the stay was granted.
McClusky could not be reached for comment regarding the ruling.