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If the EPA hearing permit is allowed for the Spruce #1 operation, that mine, owned by Arch Coal, would be the largest mountaintop removal site in West Virginia.
Although I attended that hearing, I chose not to speak publicly because I'm not from Logan or Mingo, so I really didn't think I had enough "skin in the game" to risk getting screamed at jeered down, and possibly beaten to a pulp. And at the time I wasn't certain about the science or the effect that surface mining has on the rest of the state. I am now. And I will put my comments into the public record because I do have a vested interest in stopping mountaintop removal.
Although I love West Virginia's scenery and the wildlife, it's not enough to warrant really getting actively involved to the point of risking my own safety. However, I've done more than a little research which compels me to at least add my comments to the debate. Not only that, I've chosen to share what I've found with the readers of WVA BLUE with sincere the hope that you'll be persuaded to join with me and add your comments to the EPA record as well.
I know this is a long article, and I apologize for that. If at any point you decide to cut to the chase and post your comments in opposition to the permit you can scroll to the bottom of this report where detailed instructions from the EPA website are posted, along with relevant links. But before you do so, you may wish to utilize the info found by clicking on the embedded links to scientific peer reviewed studies below. The EPA will hopefully do its job and protect the lives of our coalpatch neighbors rather than cave to moans and groans of atsroturfing profiteers most of whom don't even live in this state.
The deadline for filing is June 1.
I'll start out by explaining that my experience at the Spruce #1 EPA hearing was quite different from the one held at the same venue months earlier by the Army corps of engineers. Ken Ward Jr. only got around to telling a very small part of that story when he reported:
Tuesday's hearing was far more orderly than an October session run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. At that event, mining supporters yelled and jeered repeatedly whenever any mountaintop removal critics or opponents attempted to speak.
Unfortunately he failed to report that the Charleston police actually ejected anti-mountaintop removal folks who were just trying to get into the venue.
When I tried to attend that meeting I was jostled outside to the point where my camera was damaged. Besides the many many brand-new looking reflective mining coveralls and commercially printed signs (both of which looked suspiciously like astroturf rather than grassroots), what I also witnessed was carloads of people who weren't wearing pro MTR gear stopping in front of the Civic Center, then driving away without getting out once they saw the mayhem caused by what I suspect were mostly overweight bused-in astroturfing mine equipment salesmen dressed up to look like miners. Primarily because their hands stood out as even more soft and plump than their guts under their brand new jumpsuits.
The Army Corps of Engineers and the Charleston Police let that deal get completely out of hand. And because of it, and a number of other similar incidents, the word has gotten out to the anti-surface mining community that even if you came early and tried to speak out, you would be yelled down. The Coalpatch Gazette and Daily Wail failed miserably to report what happened outside that hearing, and unfortunately the upshot of that earlier violence was that people whom I personally know determined that it would be another a waste of time to drive all the way from Logan and Mingo only to get shouted down and threatened.
You can thank the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for that travesty. Whose own pollution, by the way, was directly responsible for the only application of a Superfund site cleanup in the southern part of WV. Some "guardians", eh?
Anyway, one of the major discoveries which compels this resident of Kanawha County to get involved is the fact that since the widespread proliferation of mountaintop removal scientific studies have been done which reveal that coal operations cost all of West Virginia far more than they plug back into our economy primarily due to the illness and premature deaths it causes to families living near those operations.
Most of us have been hearing stories for quite some time that it is the mine operators tactic to drive out those families who refuse to sell by "accidentally" using the destructive force of dynamite to hurl boulders into their yards and homes. The number and type of blasting violations recorded at one operation alone is evidence of it, not to mention the history of the way that WVDEP refuses to enforce the law.
Now before you disregard the blasting as not being relevant to this specific EPA water permit hearing you should remember that there are coal slurry injection sites all over the southern coalpatch. It should also be of serious consideration that there are court cases pending in which the residences of Mingo and Boone county have alleged and testified that MTR blasting near known slurry sites have contaminated their water supply.
There are currently over 400 known slurry injection sites strewn across WV, along with many which were never registered with the EPA or the WV DEP. the complaints filed on the lawsuits allege: "
The concentrations of known human carcinogens and toxins in the water supply of Seth/Prenter has increased the risk of disease and maladies including but not limited to kidney stone, kidney failure, gallbladder problems, cancer, gastrointestinal problems, skin lesions, and other ailments."
Studies done by Wheeling Jesuit University conclude that the water of these communities now contain human toxins such as lead, arsenic, manganese, iron and sulfides, which weren't in the aquifer before MTR blasting near slurry injection sites began.
BTW arsenic and lead, are the number 1 and 2 substances on the American Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's (ATSDR) list of priority pollutants. In fact, 7 of the top 10 substances on that list are in coal slurry.
In 2004, researchers from Wheeling Jesuit University sampled 15 area wells for assorted heavy metals. A paper, titled "Well water quality in the vicinity of a coal slurry impoundment near Williamson, West Virginia," by Dr. Ben M. Stout III, Ph.D. and research assistant Jomana Papillo, explains:
Wells in the area of Sprigg, Merrimac, Rawl, and Lick Creek near Williamson, West Virginia, reportedly had good quality water approximately 10-15 years prior to this study. More recently, households consistently reported periodic "blackwater" events in their well water, fixtures that corroded within 2 years, red and black stains on their porcelain, walls, clothing and dishes, and health problems including cancer and kidney stones. This study focused on 7 heavy metals regulated by Environmental Protection Agency primary drinking water standards, and 5 metals regulated by secondary standards...
...The information presented here indicates significant metals contamination at concentrations well beyond what should be used as a water supply source. source
Coal operators obviously expect coalpatch families to just move away or die off once they've poisoned their water. Meanwhile rightwing groups like the WV Chamber of Commerce lobby endlessly for tort reform to put a cap on what coal companies will end up being required to compensate any survivors of their particularly pernicious form of chemical warfare.
It is no coincidence that in all the media coverage of the EPA hearing, the only employee interviewed by the media actually desiring the approval of the Spruce #1 permit is a resident of Kentucky. Reporter Ry Rivard's Daily Mail article about the hearing recently exposed the fact that carloads of pro-mountaintop removal shills came in from Virginia. However photographer Bob Wojcieszak's images accompanying Rivard's piece exposed the fact that although (according Wojcieszak's caption) Douglas Nash is a miner at the Spruce #1 site, not a single reporter interviewed him.
I suspect that this Douglas Nash is a FACES OF COAL shill, primarily because I've known photographer Wojcieszak personally for years, and he's about as right wing as anyone I've ever met. And although Wojo placed two photos of Mr. Nash in the newspiece, his Daily Mail sidekick Ry Rivard completely missed interviewing the guy, as did every other reporter in the room.
Next time I'll watch Wojo.
The fact is that there are only nineteen presently working at that site, and every one I talked to was a subcontractor from out of state, which is how I found out about the Sunshine tour bus parked in the Civic Center parking lot. And although the driver told me that he'd brought in a load of coal miners from "just across the border," every member of the coalpatch media failed to report it.
Finally, by now most everyone has heard the pro-mountaintop removal arguments about the EPA placing the lives of tadpoles and other critters above the jobs and communities that the surface mine operations provide. In fact I interviewed one yellow shirted FACES OF COAL MTR proponent at the Civic Center who, although he flatly refused to tell me where he was from, compared "those tree huggin' hippies in the EPA" directly to "that PETA outfit."
Yet during the entire testimony I didn't hear any Fiends of Coal refute the peer reviewed scientific study which directly links stream water quality from coal operations to cancer in in families living in or near coal processing operations.
Notably, I've never seen any major media properly report that study, either.
It could be because Arch Coal contributed a whoppin $5 million bucks towards a massive disinformation campaign (which included advertising and "grassroots outreach") conducted by the controversial American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which shelled out a stunning $47 million in '08, some of which, by the way, was used for astroturfing.
Ken Ward Jr. reported that if the EPA permit to expand operations at the Logan-Mingo operation, employment will jump from 19 to 200 workers. I'm fairly certain that he got that number from Arch Coal press releases. Whether or not its true, we may never find out. At this point I'm thinking that they'll all be outsiders, hired by the same Kentucky-based contractor that's running the show now.
Speaking of Kentucky, it is notable that the independent study titled "The Impact of Coal on the Kentucky State Budget" lays the blame for Kentucky's widespread poverty directly on the proliferation of surface mines there. Which is probably why KY contractors are astroturfing here now that Kentucky voters are beginning to wise up.
It is also notable that of the many active large mine operations here in WV, neither Arch Coal nor Massey Energy have ever developed a single coal town around their WV operations.
There also used to be a number of UMWA hospitals in southern WV, but they've all shut down as union membership has dwindled primarily due to surface mining.
Anyway, according to the EPA, there's still time to get your two cents in. Please take the time to do so by following the instructions I've copied and pasted directly from the EPA's informational website:
Written comments can also be submitted until June 1 on the Spruce No. 1 Mine Proposed Determination, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R03-OW-2009-0985, by one of the following four methods:
1. Federal eRulemaking Portal (recommended method of comment submission):
http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments.
2. E-mail: ow-docket@epamail.epa.gov. Include the docket number, EPA-R03-OW-2009-0985, in the subject line of the message.
3. Mail: ''EPA-R03-OW-2009-0985, Spruce No. 1 Surface Mine,''
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
EPA Docket Center Water Docket, Mail Code 28221T
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460
4. Hand Delivery or Courier:
Director, Office of Environmental Programs
Environmental Assessment and Innovation Division
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III (3EA30)
1650 Arch Street,
Philadelphia, PA19103
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