Island Creek - A Growing List of Serious Environmental Issues

Floods

by Moss Burgess
Logan County citizen activist

We, citizens on Island Creek on Rte. 44 in Logan County, have been actively involved in flood prevention and stream restoration. We were devastated by floods in May, 1996 and Memorial Day, 2004. These two floods have been the highest, we believe, due to strip mining and clearcutting many of us have lived here over 50 years. We know that flooding is due to various factors but the clearcutting and strip mining are definitely major factors in the height of the flood.

The DEP asked for a meeting with us and we met on April 11 at the agencys Logan office. Present were DEP Officials, representatives from Massey Coal, Arch Coal and our representatives. Discussion centered around using mitigation credits whereby the coal companies would help restore the creek.

We are anxious to see something done. Also legal means are being studied, to be used if necessary, to recoup some of the damage done to us. Our flood insurance is so high, in some cases over $1,000 a year, that many of us on fixed incomes had to drop it. Our property values have decreased and we are left holding the bag!

PCB's

by Moss Burgess
Logan County citizen activist

Sarah Ann is a community of Island Creek, which is a watershed about 20 miles long. Above that community, adjacent to the highway, there is an abandoned mine site. Here, we came across vandalized electric transformers, with their chemical-laden oil dumped on the ground. There are over 24 of these large transformers, which I assume were vandalized for the wire.

	Some of the transformers on a snowy day.

Sarah Ann gets its drinking water from private wells, which are down slope and downstream from this contaminated site. The creek in this area flows into the Guyandotte River, which flows all the way to the Ohio. All downstream communities are in line for this known contamination. We were told the mine site was abandoned around 1992. I have e-mailed the Charleston Gazette and others, but I cant seem to get the news out.

Why wasnt the bond used immediately to clean up this mess? Will the DEP do a better job with their policing of the Water Quality Board than they did with this bond?