Dunkard Creek’s death cited in takeover petition to EPA
Late last week, West Virginia citizen groups filed an update to their petition asking the federal Environmental Protection Agency to take over Clean Water Act permitting and enforcement from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.
As you recall, the original petition filed in May cited a variety of problems with the way DEP is handling its duty to protect West Virginia’s rivers and streams.
This supplemental petition is more narrowed in focus: It blames the death of Dunkard Creek from a massive fish kill on WVDEP’s inaction on longstanding coal industry pollution problems.
I’ve posted a copy of the supplemental petition here. It outlines WVDEP’s delays in dealing with water pollution violations by CONSOL Energy, a topic that I also discussed in some detail in a previous story for the Sunday Gazette-Mail, “30-mile fish kill at Dunkard Creek: DEP delayed action on pollution problems over the last decade.”
In short, the petition by the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment blames coal pollution for creating conditions that allowed toxic algae to spread in Dunkard Creek, wiping out the entire stream’s fish and mussel population:
The Dunkard Creek fish kill was caused diretly by West Virginia’s inadequate implementation and enforcement of its NPDES program … The state of West Virginia has known since at least 2002 that CONSOL has been discharging chlorides in concentrations causing water quality standards violations … Rather than requiring CONSOL comply with the chlorides water quality stnadard regardless of the cost — as required by the Clean Water Act — WVDEP endorsed CONSOL’s continued delay.
This time, compliance schedule abuse has also led to an environmental catastrophe — the extirpation of aquatic life from Dunkard Creek … Moreover, WVDEP has identified 20 other waters in West Virginia with conditions conducive to golden algae blooms — conditions that have developed as a result of WVDEP’s lax ovesight.
If ever a state’s failures should lead to the withdrawal of its NPDES permitting program, these are the appropriate circumstances.
WVDEP officials have indicated that what happened at Dunkard Creek may cause them to revisit some of their policies about waiving pollution guidelines, granting compliance delays, and not writing stream cleanup plans for certain coal-related pollutants.
Of course, that comes too late for Dunkard Creek. And the supplemental petition filed with EPA argues that WVDEP hasn’t really learned a lesson, citing efforts by the agency to extend compliance deadlines for Hobet Mining to clean up selenium discharges that are toxic to aquatic life. According to the petition:
… WVDEP has proven that it has learned nothing from the Dunkard Creek disaster … Leaving WVDEP in charge of the protection of West Virginia’s aquatic resources presents unacceptable risks to the environment.
5 comments
I wonder what the UMWA’s position is on this petition. Since this mine is under a UMWA contract
Union or not, company management and WVDEP in this and other cases have arranged to delay compliance with laws and regulations. It is simply unacceptable that WVDEP under the Manchin administration has chosen to pretend that laws and regulations are arbitrary, that the laws of physics, chemistry, and the US somehow don’t apply in WV, and that their actions (or lack thereof) have no real world consequences. Rather than applying the idea of preventing catastrophes, WVDEP routinely grants permits/variances/deals that set up these catastrophes. A good example is the blasting on Coal River Mountain next to a massive sludge dam over old underground mines. In learning nothing from the Martin County disaster of 2000, WVDEP is placing the citizens of Pettus, Whitesville, Sylvester, and beyond in imminent danger. When disaster strikes, it’s always a glitch or act of God, and those who set up the disaster deny any responsibility or accountability.
It doesn’t matter whether the mine is union or not. If the company is guilty, they are guilty. Just because a company is union doesn’t mean that I would take the side of that company even though my husband is a UMWA member.
This polluting has got to stop. I don’t care whose toes get stepped on.
I agree with Nanette. The primary issue is about compliance with the law. How anyone can look at the cost to WV citizens who depend on the mountain streams for drinking water and claim that jobs take priority is beyond me.
It all comes from looking to short term profits for the coal companies instead of long term relationships with the employees and communities. Smaller profits in the short term will mean longer life in the aquatic world and the general environment.
Wow, this petition strikes right at the core of the problem. Many people have wondered who was responsible for killing Dunkard Creek and the answer is clearly the West Virginia DEP. They knew back in 2002 that TDS/Chloride levels from the Blacksville No 2 outfall exceeded twice the maximum levels allowed by EPA but they allowed it to continue. Now they are trying to divert attention from that reality by focusing on golden algae, even though they know well that these algae only grow in water that has excessive TDS levels - something that was their fault! Given their deceitful and incompetent behavior, the best solution is to remove them from any responsibility in enforcing NPDES and similar programs.
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