NEW LAWSUITS FILED AGAINST MASSEY COAL - Judge Blocks Mountaintop Dumping Into Trout Stream

(04/09/2004)

The state Department of Environmental Protection has filed lawsuits against two Massey Energy subsidiaries over repeated water quality violations.The suits were filed last week in Logan County. The Ohio Valley Environmental Council has claimed Massey has spent more money violating the rules than complying to them. They seek reimbursement from Bandmill Coal and Independence Coal for the agency's cost of cleaning up slurry releases in mountain state streams. The DEP says Massey continues to violate the state's Water Pollution Control Act. The agency wants the company to be ordered to remove coal slurry from sections of Rum Creek and the Guyandotte River. This week a federal judge has temporarily blocked Massey's plan to bury a stretch of a Nicholas County stream, even though the Bush administration has changed the rules allowing for more moutaintop removal. If approval moves ahead, the Massey company will bury Blue Branch with nearly 20 million tons of preparation plant waste, rock and dirt, into Hominy Creek, a quality trout stream. There will likely be a new round of court battles against mountaintop removal, which has buried prep waste, rock and dirt in nearly 1000 miles of streams in West Virginia.

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