What do you do if you’re an environmental protection agency and you let a mining company kill off all the fish and bugs in a popular fishing stream?

Apparently you allow the company to resume polluting — after an appropriate mourning period, of course.

From the Associated Press:

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) – West Virginia regulators are allowing Consol Energy to resume pumping mine water into a creek where golden algae killed thousands of fish and other aquatic life in September.

The state Department of Environmental Protection said Monday that discharges into Dunkard Creek from Consol’s Blacksville No. 2 mine will be allowed through April 30.

But chloride discharges will be limited to 860 milligrams per liter when the water temperature is 50 degrees or higher.

Federal investigators have said high levels of total dissolved solids helped the algae flourish.

Scott Mandirola with the DEP’s Division of Water and Waste Management says golden algae is less likely to bloom and produce toxins in cooler water temperatures.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 7:47 am and is filed under Environmental Issues, West Virginia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.