WV Could Get Stuck Cleaning Up Coal Industry's Messes, Crisis Emerging In KY, OH, PA, VA: ProPublica

- 'West Virginians Could Get Stuck Cleaning Up the Coal Industry's Messes' by Ken Ward, Jr., Mountain State Spotlight, Dec. 1, 2023. ProPublica.🔎 - The state’s program for reclaiming abandoned coal mines has long been plagued with problems, but state and federal officials have done little to prepare for this reckoning.

West Virginia’s fund to clean up abandoned coal mines is in such dire shape that it threatens to stick taxpayers with hundreds of millions — perhaps even billions — of dollars in cleanup costs. And yet, little is being done to turn things around. The bankruptcy of just one significant mining company could wipe out the fund, according to the state’s top regulatory official.

And auditors for the Republican-controlled Legislature said at least five major companies were “at risk” of dumping cleanup costs on the state. At $15 million, the state’s fund for restoring land is at its lowest level in more than 20 years. The program’s latest published actuarial report in 2022 warned that a related water cleanup trust fund will lose half its balance over the next 10 years.

These are costs the coal industry was supposed to cover. Unreclaimed mine sites can not only damage the environment but also endanger coalfield residents who live nearby. Coal waste dams sometimes leak or break, flooding downstream communities. Cliffs of rock and debris left behind after mining can collapse. Runoff that isn’t contained or treated often poisons fish or water supplies.

This crisis is emerging in other coal states like Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, which have also had problems with their mine reclamation programs. But West Virginia offers perhaps the clearest and most troubling portrait of what could happen as the coal industry’s decline continues. The state fund’s problems have been depicted as a recent phenomenon tied to a wave of coal company bankruptcies over the past decade. But a detailed review by Mountain State Spotlight and ProPublica reveals that they are far from that...More,
https://www.propublica.org/article/west-virginians-could-get-stuck-cleaning-up-coal-industry-messes

- Mountaintop removal on Coal River Mountain with blasting and deforestation, May 10, 2023, Raleigh County, WV, flyover country.
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- Oct 27, 2023. 'Coal River Mountain Watch Holds Lexington Coal Co. Accountable for Environmental Violations' - W.Va. Dept. of Environmental Protection assesses nearly $600,000 in fines

Naoma, W.Va.– Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW), an environmental justice citizens’ group in Naoma, WV, has compelled the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection to impose substantial fines totaling over $297,000 on Lexington Coal Company. WVDEP levied these penalties on 13 cessation orders resulting from the company's negligent practices. The WVDEP has issued nearly $600,000 in fines to Lexington so far in October. None have been paid, according to the WVDEP.

CRMW examined and scrutinized Lexington’s mining permits and inspection files near the community. CRMW alerted the federal Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement to WVDEP’s practice of granting unlimited extensions of time for coal companies to correct their violations. In one egregious example, WVDEP granted 25 extensions to abate a violation issued July 29, 2021, over 2 years. Law requires that extensions past 90 days are limited to specific circumstances, none of which applied to the violation. Coal River Mountain Watch, joined by Appalachian Voices and Sierra Club, on July 18, 2023, requested the OSMRE to take oversight action to end the process...
- More, https://www.crmw.net/