EPA Investigating Massey’s Coal River Mountain Mine Site

by Ken Ward Jr., excerpted from a Nov. 20, 2009, Charleston Gazette article

US Environmental Protection Agency officials have launched an investigation of Massey Energy’s Bee Tree Mine, the mountaintop removal operation where local citizen groups had hoped to instead locate a wind-energy facility.

EPA inspectors visited the site early this month, and on Thursday sent Massey’s Marfork Coal Co. subsidiary a letter seeking a long list of information about the operation.

John R. Pomponio, EPA’s regional director of environmental assessment, said in the letter that his agency is concerned about the Bee Tree operation’s lack of a "dredge-and-fill" permit under Section 404 of the federal Clean Water Act.

Massey had applied for such a permit, but then withdrew its application and rewrote the mining plan under its state surface mining permit to avoid – at least for now – needing that federal permit.

Under the Clean Water Act, any approval of such a permit by the federal Army Corps of Engineers is subject to EPA veto – and EPA officials have launched a program to more closely review mountaintop removal permits before signing off on them.

In his letter to Marfork Coal, Pomponio cautioned that EPA would want to review any Clean Water Act permit that is eventually sought at the Bee Tree site.

"The activities underway at the site do not appear

to have independent utility from the mining project that is the subject of the Section 404 permit application," Pomponio said. "EPA is concerned that Marfork Coal Company may be committing significant resources and conducting operations in reliance on a Section 404 permit that has not been issued."

Pomponio added that the corps has not yet decided what streams at the site fall under Clean Water Act protections and that EPA has "some concern that ongoing activities at the site could impact such waters if sufficient precautions are not exercised."

Massey has 30 days to respond to the letter and provide the information EPA requested.

Shane Harvey, Massey’s general counsel, said the company has received the letter and is reviewing it.

Last month, Massey began blasting at the Bee Tree Mine along Coal River Mountain, despite a national campaign by environmental groups to promote the idea of turning the area into a wind-energy facility instead. Citizen groups are also concerned about the impact of blasting at the site on nearby residents and on an adjacent coal slurry impoundment.

Vernon Haltom, co-director of Coal River Mountain Watch, said his group welcomes the EPA investigation.

"It’s encouraging," Haltom said. "This particular site has such potential for danger that it’s crucial that it be very closely scrutinized."