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River Needs Major Cleanup; Mining Pollution in Coal River Needs Drastic Cut, State Says

Posted on: Thursday, 29 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

By Ken Ward Jr.

kward@wvgazette.com

Mining operations along the Coal River need to cut their toxic metal discharges by nearly two-thirds to meet pollution limits, according to a draft state cleanup plan being released this week.

Coal mines need to eliminate nearly 2.5 million pounds per year of iron, aluminum and manganese that they pour into the Coal and its tributaries, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection proposal.

"Reductions in discharges from mining operations are an important part of this picture," said Dave Montali, who coordinates stream cleanups for the DEP Division of Water and Waste Management.

To clean up the Coal, DEP officials say that the state also needs to eliminate raw sewage discharges, reclaim abandoned coal mines and reduce runoff of contaminated sediment.

"It's a combination of all sorts of kinds of things," Montali said of the Coal's pollution problems.

This week, DEP is holding a series of community meetings to unveil its proposed Coal River cleanup plan. The first meeting was scheduled for Tuesday night at Sherman High School in Seth. Additional meetings are planned for 7 p.m. today at St. Albans High School and 7 p.m. Thursday at Scott High School in Madison.

Details of the DEP's cleanup plan are available online at www.dep.state.wv.us/item.cfm?ssid=11&ss1id= 719.

Comments on the draft DEP plan are being accepted through Oct. 17.

Over the last two years, the Coal River's problems and potential have gotten increased attention, including the formation of a new group working to protect parts of the watershed closer to Charleston.

Issues surrounding the river were highlighted in a 2004 series of Gazette articles, available online at wvgazette. com/section/Series/ Coal+ River:+Problems+and+ potential.

The Coal River watershed drains nearly 900 acres in southwestern West Virginia, mostly in Boone and Raleigh counties. From its headwaters to the mouth at St. Albans, the Coal includes more than 1,118 miles of streams.

Previously, DEP has said that more than 125 of those streams - flowing for about 600 miles - are impaired by various types of pollution.

The new DEP plan is called a Total Maximum Daily Load. Under a federal court lawsuit settlement, state officials are writing hundreds of TMDLs to clean up state waterways that are polluted beyond their legal limits.

DEP officials say that one of the Coal's biggest problems is excess levels of raw sewage being discharged into the river's many tributaries.

"There are a whole lot of sewage issues all over the place," Montali said. "They only thing we can do is encourage the expansion of public treatment works."

But the coal industry itself is also a major problem, DEP says in its new report. Active and abandoned mining are linked to excess levels of acidity and toxic metals, including aluminum and iron.

To fix those problems, dozens of active mining permits will have to be rewritten to tighten discharge limits, the DEP report says.

To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348- 1702.

Source: Charleston Gazette, The

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