Photo by Chris Dorst
The Charleston Gazette
It was another "act of god" as legislators left Charleston after failing to increase the
weight limits on coal trucks to 120,000 pounds. Up to three inches of rain fell on
Logan County and vicinity, causing a Massey Coal Company sediment dam to partially
collapse, sending a ten foot wall of water down Winding Shoals Hollow.
It caused horrific recall, shades of Buffalo Creek 30 years ago.
The company, barely rebounding from one of the greatest sludge spills in history just
across the Kentucky border, had been warned about problems with the
impoundment.
Some DEP officials said the problem this week resulted from "valley fill," where earthen refuse is pushed over the hill from mountaintop removal, filling creekbeds.
Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey, announced the company will be moving their
operations to eastern Kentucky, expressing anger toward Gov. Bob Wise for not
getting the higher weight coal truck bill through the legislature.
Blankenship was testifying in a court case in Boone County. The bankrupt Harman
Mining is suing Massey for $30 million in damages, claiming the giant corporation
took them.
Many West Virginia historians claim the state has sold its soul to King Coal, but
Blankenship, who is reportedly earning up to $15 million annually as CEO, says "We're
unable to invest in West Virginia."
However, Massey's holdings of 2.1 billion tons in coal reserves are still in West
Virginia, reportedly 82% of their total holdings.
Photo by Chris Dorst
The Charleston Gazette gave the following in-depth stories yesterday:
Scary Time In The Hollow -
Mine Pond Overflows In Logan
Saturday July 20, 2002
By Greg Stone
Staff Writer
The
Charleston Gazette
LYBURN â Seven cinderblocks couldn't
raise the mobile home high enough. The
black water raged 10 feet high against the
windows.
"We just grabbed each other and ran to the
back," said Lisa Dowden, 38, recalling the
way she and her daughter fought a wall of
water that topped over a Massey Energy
Co. sediment pond and crashed down
Winding Shoals Hollow.
Dowden and her daughter couldn't get the
back door of their home open. Until the
windows broke.
"The entertainment center, the refrigerator,
everything was coming at us," Dowden
said. Water gushing through the house
broke the pressure on the back door,
allowing the Dowdens to escape.
When the fury had ceased, Lisa and Mark Dowden had lost their
home, as did her father-in-law Clifford, next door. Clifford, his
wife and a young relative retreated to a bedroom as the water first
buckled the walls of the house, then whooshed in. Water luckily
did not top the bed. They escaped once the water subsided.
No one was injured in the hollow, located between Logan and
Man on W.Va. 10.
Clifford Dowden sat visibly distraught, chain smoking, for hours
after the 8:30 a.m. incident.
"Yeah, I get pretty angry when you lose everything you own and
know Massey Coal Co. is to blame," Clifford, 66, said.
Lisa Dowden videotaped the aftermath of the disaster. The
horrific morning had taken its toll on her, too.
"I really thought we were going to die, Mark," she told her
husband, a deep coal miner at another site. Mark rushed from his
underground post when he heard the news.
Massey's Bandmill Coal Corp. had been reclaiming the
mountaintop removal mine site. Pittston Coal formerly owned the
mine. Department of Environmental Protection records show that
Bandmill had been cited for not keeping its sediment ponds
dredged, including the one that overflowed.
Friday's accident happened about 15 minutes north of Logan
County's Buffalo Creek, where 125 people died in a 1972 flood.
That flood happened when a coal impoundment dam broke,
sending water down the hollow.
Though Friday's results weren't in any way as tragic, residents
said they had complained about the pond.
Resident Ruby Caldwell, 48, said she called DEP in May, after the
pond overtopped and sent water running down the road in front of
her house.
"They were supposed to get back to us and we never heard from
them," she said. "I've lived here all my life and it's never done
this."
Friday's incident damaged at least five other houses, destroyed 10
vehicles and left the small community looking like some form of
futuristic devastation.
DEP Secretary Michael Callaghan said he believes that "valley fill"
material created by the mountaintop's removal became loose,
crashed into the pond and sent water cascading over the pond's
borders and an earthen dam, much like dropping a big rock into a
bucket of water.
He said the other possibility is that the "toe" or base of the fill
buckled and tumbled into the pond.
Callaghan pointed to helicopters circling the scene. He said they
were state engineers trying to determine the stability of the pond
and dam.
As an extra safety measure, he said he might order that rocks be
placed at a point in the milelong hollow, to help break the force of
any potential overflow.
The secretary said he did not know if Massey would be cited
further.
"I came rushing down here this morning," Callaghan said. "I don't
want to cast blame on anyone yet. My concern is for the safety of
these people."
Gov. Bob Wise toured the Lyburn site Friday and the Low Gap
area of Boone County, where dozens of people were evacuated
after heavy rainfall. No injuries were reported there either.
Wise said his immediate concern is for families affected by
Friday's events. He said his administration would be working with
Massey to address safety issues.
Massey's safety coordinator, Frank Foster, said the company had
offered hotel rooms, rental cars and food to residents of the
hollow. Foster, however, declined to say just what happened. "It's
still under investigation," he said.
As Foster spoke at about 3:10 p.m., air hung heavy and muggy.
Mud covered everything. Rocks littered the scene.
Water continued to cascade off the mountain, past large boulders
closer to the summit. Someone in a backhoe continued to clear the
underpass under W.Va. 10.
A culvert is supposed to carry water from the pond off the
mountain, down the hollow, under the highway and into the
Guyandotte River. Friday morning's catastrophe shredded the
culvert and ripped a 10-foot wide ditch along the road.
Vehicles were tossed on their sides or noses Friday, or simply
washed down the hollow. One shot through the narrow underpass,
ending up in the Guyandotte. Others stacked up crazily at the
opening.
Residents say they fear what might happen to a series of other
Massey-owned sediment ponds that ring the ridge above them.
One Massey worker, attempting to make arrangements after the
accident, asked Mark Dowden if he lived in the hollow.
"I used to," he replied.
Site Has A History Of Pond Violations -
No Blame Assigned Until DEP Investigates
Saturday July 20, 2002
By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff Writer
The
Charleston Gazette
In mid-May, state inspectors cited a Massey
Energy operation in Logan County for not
cleaning out a sediment pond at the foot of a
valley fill.
Massey took more than two weeks to fix the
problem. And by then, the operation had
allowed a second pond to fill more than the
allowable 60 percent capacity, according to
state records.
After the second violation on May 29, state
Department of Environmental Protection
officials could have shut down the operation.
They didn't.
On Friday morning, after a three-hour storm,
the sediment pond at Massey subsidiary
Bandmill Coal Corp. overflowed.
Water poured down the hollow toward Lyburn, between Logan
and Man, flooding the community and damaging homes.
"It basically washed the whole hollow out," said John Scott, a
permit supervisor with the DEP field office in Logan.
No one was injured and all residents were accounted for, said Ted
Sparks, supervisor of the Logan County 911 Center.
DEP Secretary Michael Callaghan and mining director Matt Crum
hurried to the flood site Friday morning to assist with the
investigation and cleanup.
Callaghan said the pond filled with material from the valley fill and
sent water rushing down the hollow. He declined to assign blame
for the situation until it could be further investigated.
At the Lyburn site, Bandmill operates a 1,600-acre mountaintop
removal mine called Tower Mountain. The operation is along
Winding Shoals Branch of the Guyandotte River, near Rum
Creek.
In 2000, the mine produced 870,000 tons of coal. It employed 25
workers, according to the state Office of Miners' Health, Safety
and Training.
Callaghan told The Associated Press that Bandmill is not currently
producing coal on the permit where the pond that overflowed
Friday is located. Instead, he said, the company is reclaiming the
site.
Overall, Bandmill holds eight permits in the area for several
surface mines, a preparation plant and associated facilities.
Since September 1998, the company has been fined nearly
$73,000 for 56 separate environmental violations, according to
DEP computer records.
The operations under the Tower Mountain permit have been fined
nearly $34,000 since January 1999, according to the DEP records.
Tower Mountain was cited six times for sediment control
violations and three times for exceeding water pollution limits, the
records show.
In July 2000, DEP inspectors said the operation had "failed to
protect off-site areas from damage from surface mining
operations." They ordered the company to repair erosion between
two sediment ponds, including the one involved in Friday's flood.
In August 2000, state inspectors again found that the company did
not protect off-site areas from damage. This time, they ordered
Bandmill to repair erosion at the base of another pond in Dehue
Hollow, on the right fork of Rum Creek.
In September 2001, Bandmill was cited for improper construction,
maintenance and use of sediment control structures. DEP said the
company did not "minimize adverse hydrologic impact in the
permit and adjacent areas."
In the last two years, Bandmill has been cited three times for not
cleaning out sediment ponds in a timely manner.
When it rains, sediment ponds at strip mines are used to collect
runoff and keep mud and dirt from disturbed land from running
into streams. Once in the ponds, mud and dirt drops to the
bottom, and clear water flows out into streams. Mud and dirt must
frequently be cleaned from the ponds, to keep them from filling
up.
Under state mining regulations, coal operators must clean out
sediment ponds whenever the ponds reach 60 percent of their
capacity.
"Clean-out elevation shall be to a level so as to restore design
storage capacity as indicated on plans submitted for each
structure," the regulations state. "Sediment removal and disposal
shall be done in a manner and at a frequency that minimizes
adverse impacts on surface and groundwater quality."
Bandmill's first pond-cleaning violation occurred on Aug. 9, 2000.
The pond was not completely cleaned, as DEP had ordered, until
Oct. 19, 2000. The company was fined $1,400.
On May 13 of this year, DEP inspectors determined that all of the
sediment control structures at Bandmill were full.
The agency issued an imminent harm cessation order, requiring
Bandmill to immediately clean out its ponds. Among the ponds
cited as full was the Winding Shoals pond, where Friday's
problems occurred.
Four days later, a DEP inspector wrote, "very little pond cleaning
has occurred ... potential exists for imminent environmental
harm."
Company officials did not complete the pond cleaning until May
29, according to DEP records. Bandmill was fined $12,000.
But by that time, the company had allowed a different pond to fill
to more than 60 percent of its capacity, state records show. DEP
cited Bandmill again, and fined the company $2,200.
That pond was not cleaned until June 13, according to DEP
records.
The last inspection of the site was on July 1, DEP officials said
Friday afternoon. No citations were issued.
Under state mining rules, the DEP may move to shut down an
operation if two or more violations occur within a 12-month
period. The violations do not have to be of the same rules, but
DEP may consider whether violations are of a "same or related"
regulation in deciding whether to shut down mining.
Under the rules, if a company is cited for three violations within a
12-month period, the DEP director must "review the history of
violations of any permittee who has been cited for violations of the
same or related requirements."
Under the Wise administration, DEP has suspended permits for at
three Massey subsidiaries because of repeated environmental
violations. Massey has challenged those suspensions in court.
Jeff McCormick, assistant chief for enforcement at the DEP
Division of Mining and Reclamation, declined to characterize
Bandmill's compliance history.
"You've got the violation history, so draw your own conclusions,"
he said.
McCormick said the repeat pond-cleaning citation issue "probably
hasn't been reviewed yet for a pattern.
"It's just one of those things," McCormick said. "It's bad that it
happened. I feel bad for the people down there."
Massey CEO Says Company Looking
To Kentucky
Saturday July 20, 2002
By Paul J. Nyden
Staff Writer
The
Charleston Gazette
MADISON â Massey Energy Co. plans to
begin shifting coal production to eastern
Kentucky from Southern West Virginia,
according to Don Blankenship, the
company's chief executive officer.
"We're unable to continue to invest in West
Virginia because of shareholder interest. We
will invest in Kentucky," Blankenship
testified during proceedings on Friday in
Boone County Circuit Court.
Hugh Caperton, president of Harman Mining
in Virginia, is suing Massey for nearly $30
million in damages he said he suffered when
Blankenship stripped him of a contract to sell
high-quality metallurgical coal to LTV Corp.
Harman is now bankrupt.
During his testimony, Blankenship criticized
Gov. Bob Wise, the state Department of Environmental
Protection and Delegate Mike Caputo, D-Marion.
"The West Virginia DEP is influenced by the United Mine
Workers," Blankenship said. "Bob Wise used to work for the
UMW. And Mike Caputo is still causing trouble for coal trucks."
Caputo, a UMW officer, has led legislative efforts to keep legal
truck weight limits at a maximum of 80,000 pounds and increase
enforcement against overweight trucks, which often weigh
between 140,000 and 190,000 pounds.
If Massey shifts its coal mining operations to Kentucky, as
Blankenship apparently plans to do, the company would be
abandoning areas where the majority of its coal reserves are
located.
Today, Massey owns 2.1 billion tons of coal reserves, 82 percent
of which are located in West Virginia, according to the latest
annual 10K report Massey filed with the US Securities and
Exchange Commission.
Kentucky has only 14 percent of Massey's reserves, with the
remaining 4 percent in Virginia and Tennessee.
Under questioning from lawyer Bruce Stanley, who represents
Caperton, Blankenship acknowledged Massey mines have released
many spills of polluted water in the past. But he called most of
them "small spills."
Blankenship believes some criticisms are exaggerated, such as
those from local residents of Sylvester in Boone County, who
complained that Massey's Elk Run mining operation covered their
homes, cars and gardens with clouds of coal dust.
"Our nonunion operation has less dust in the community than
there is in the Charleston [public] library. But we have been
required to build a dome over part of the operation," Blankenship
said.
Building the dome was part of an agreement between Massey and
the DEP's Division of Air Quality.
In his lawsuit, Caperton charged Massey bought Wellmore Coal in
July 1997 with the intention of shutting Harman Mining down.
Blankenship stripped Harman of its coal sales agreement with
Wellmore, shifting it to Massey's own mines in Southern West
Virginia.
In March 2000, Caperton, a cousin of former governor Gaston
Caperton, won a $6 million jury verdict against Massey in
Buchanan County, Va., for financial damages. Massey is
appealing the verdict to the Virginia Supreme Court.
During Friday's court testimony, Stanley questioned Blankenship
about his salary and benefits from the company.
Last fall, Massey agreed to pay Blankenship salary, bonuses and
other benefits that could total between $10 million and $15 million
a year under his new contract from Nov. 1, 2001, to April 30,
2005.
When Stanley asked him if he was well compensated, Blankenship
said, "I believe most people would think so, yes. Pretty good for a
boy from Mingo County."
Blankenship will also get an annual pension of more than $1.4
million, according to the latest annual "proxy statement" that
Massey sent its shareholders in March.
In February, Blankenship announced he would lay off up to 600
mine workers to "right size" his company. After the layoffs,
Massey will employ between 4,200 and 4,300 people, most in
Southern West Virginia.
Massey is currently transforming Charleston's Magic Island park
into a mini-city of tents and stages for its company picnic, July 27.
Employees from all of the company's subsidiaries are invited,
meaning several thousand people are expected to attend.
Stanley mentioned that the proxy report revealed Blankenship
received all his bonuses, "even though not all of the performance
criteria [in his contract that ended Oct. 31, 2001] were met."
Massey's net earnings dropped from $203.4 million in 1999, to
$78.8 million in 2000 to a loss of $1.1 million in 2001, according
to Massey's latest 10K report.
The proxy and 10K reports also detail other real and potential
financial costs, including:
$6.9 million paid to the West Virginia Workers' Compensation
Fund for premiums never paid by Massey contractors;
$7.5 million for losses from sales contracts with Enron, the
Houston-based energy trading company that collapsed in
November;
$6 million for the Harman Mining verdict;
$2.5 million for a Mingo County jury award for a spill;
$225,000 in fines to the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Service for
damage caused when 230 million gallons of coal slurry poured into
streams in eastern Kentucky from Massey's Martin County Coal
operations in October 2000;
At least $9 million in other cleanup costs from the collapse of
that coal refuse impoundment. Insurance companies paid for
$32.5 million of $41.5 million in cleanup costs;
The Boone County jury trial, which began six weeks ago, was in
its 26th day on Friday.
Blankenship will continue testifying Monday in the Harman
Mining lawsuit at the Boone County Courthouse.
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