W.VA. coal slurry study leads to public meeting | Apr 26, 2011

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Hundreds of southern West Virginia residents who believe the underground injection of coal slurry ruined their water supplies are getting the chance to tell their stories to engineers embarking on a yearlong study of a possible link.

Officials with Triad Engineering and the state Department of Environmental Protection scheduled a meeting Tuesday night with residents of the Boone County communities of Seth and Prenter as they begin to examine possible links between injection sites and foul-smelling, badly discolored water that poured from taps for years.

So far, Triad has taken about 30 samples, mostly from water wells, and it's expected to continue its work through this winter, DEP spokeswoman Kathy Cosco said. The engineers are targeting homes along the Hopkins Fork of Big Coal River and tributaries of Hopkins Fork.

They also will sample from surface and deep mining operations, coal preparation plants, refuse areas, impoundments, underground mine pools and underground injection sites.

Slurry is the wastewater created when coal is washed to help it burn efficiently, and injecting it into worked-out mines is one of the ways coal operators can legally dispose of it.

Tuesday's meeting in Racine is designed to explain how Triad and the DEP are approaching the study. A meeting was held last winter, but Cosco said bad weather limited the turnout to about two dozen, so the DEP rescheduled for the spring.

"We weren't really able to get out on the ground and sampling until the weather broke, anyway," she said.

DEP geologist Nick Schaer and Dennis Stottlemyer of the DEP's environmental advocate's office planned to attend, along with Tom Clarke and Lewis Halstead from the DEP's Division if Mining and Reclamation. Triad was sending representative John Meeks.

Cosco said they would ask residents for permission to go onto their properties and to sample their wells. They also planned to interview residents for details about the odors, color and taste of their water over time.

Two years ago, 250 people sued eight coal companies whose operations they blame for the contamination, including Virginia-based Massey Energy ( MEE - news - people ) and four subsidiaries.

The lead plaintiffs, Ralph and Maria Lambert, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Their case, however, argues that decades of surface and underground mining activities near Prenter and Seth fractured the underground voids that had contained the slurry, allowing it to reach the aquifer. The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages, and a medical monitoring program.

The communities are now served by public water lines and do not have to rely on their wells for drinking water.

A previous DEP study failed to identify a link between the injection sites and the bad wells, and the coal companies have denied responsibility. Since then, however, the DEP has imposed a moratorium on new slurry injection sites.

Last year, a team of West Virginia University researchers advised lawmakers to start monitoring coal slurry, even though they could not conclusively demonstrate a hazard to public health.

Written by: Vicky Smith, Forbes