DEP put on a tight leash on abandoned mine pollution

Remember how West Virginia Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman wanted 3 1/2 years  to obtain water pollution permits for abandoned mine sites where  DEP is treating toxic discharges to streams?

Well, U.S. District  Judge Irene M. Keeley apparently didn’t think too much of Huffman’s proposal.

After a hearing on  Wednesday, Keeley gave the DEP just six months to apply for these permits and another six months to obtain the permits. I’ve posted the judge’s order, issued Thursday, here. The order applies to 18 abandoned mine sites that were targeted by the lawsuit brought by the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy  the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.

As I  have written before,   this case involves long-standing problems with the Special Reclamation Program, and the monetary fund that supports that program:

The program, required by federal law, aims to clean up coal mines abandoned since passage of the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act.  Mines abandoned before then are covered by a separate program, also mandated by the 1977 law and funded by coal industry taxes.

Over the years, the program has never had enough money. Thousands of acres of abandoned mines have sat unreclaimed. Hundreds of polluted streams went untreated.

Historically, the fund has been short of money because coal operators had not posted reclamation bonds sufficient to cover the true cost of mine cleanups at sites they abandon. A state tax on coal production was never set high enough to cover the difference.

Today, DEP operates treatment systems at dozens of abandoned mine sites. But the agency does not reduce the pollution from those sites enough to meet water quality limits, and does not obtain Clean Water Act permits for the site discharges. [For more background, see here, here and here] 

Environmental groups have been trying for years to reform the program, and the lawsuit before Keeley was brought to try to force DEP to obtain permits for mine treatment systems, which would in turn make the agency comply with some sort of water quality limits at those abandoned mine sites.

Jim Hecker, environmental  enforcement director at Public Justice, and one of the citizen group lawyers who brought the case, explained the outcome of Keeley’s ruling this way:

The court’s order will now force DEP to obtain those permits.  To comply with federal law, those permits will have to contain discharge limits based on water quality standards that are more stringent than the limits that DEP is currently using.  To meet those limits, DEP will have to improve its treatment systems.