In "DEP still behind on pollution monitoring; No citations or fines issued for mine water violations in late ’06, early ’07," Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette reported on Jan. 20, 2008:

When a federal government lawsuit over Massey Energy Co. water pollution violations hit the courtroom in 2007, it was big news. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lawyers cited thousands of water permit problems, enough to amount to 28 violations per day over a six-year period.

Most of the lawsuit was based on self-monitoring pollution reports Massey subsidiaries filed every month with the state Department of Environmental Protection. But ... DEP officials had not been looking at the reports.

"The cop was clearly asleep for years," said Pat Parenteau, an environmental law professor at the Vermont Law School. "It is really an indictment of the enforcement program."

Despite efforts by DEP to improve, the agency is still about a year behind in reviewing the coal industry’s pollution reports, officials said. And the agency has not issued any citations or assessed fines for any violations discovered on reports it reviewed for late 2006 and early 2007…