| A federal judge with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia has found Fola Coal Co.'s mountaintop removal mining operations in Clay County were in violation of clean water standards.
The decision comes as a response to a March 2013 citizen lawsuit, which alleged mine runoff from the Consol Energy subsidiary's mining operation in Clay and Nicholas counties contaminated waterways with sulfate and other ionic pollutants, violating the Clean Water Act and Surface Mining Control Reclamation Act.
Fola Coal closed the mountaintop and deep mine operations about two years ago, eliminating about 300 jobs,
the company reportedly reclaiming the site.
The company said the closure was related to excessive EPA rulings regarding the coal operation and the decline in market for the type of coal.
"There is no reason to doubt that Stillhouse Branch is biologically impaired," Chambers wrote in the opinion, citing West Virginia's 2012 Section 303(d) List, which reported the waterway as impaired throughout the entire length of the stream, noting mining as the source of impairment.
"Conductivity and sulfates notably increased after Fola began mining in the watershed."
Citizen group representatives behind the lawsuit say this ruling demonstrates a lack of enforcement from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
"Over and over we see our state DEP failing to enforce standards and laws that are written to ensure mountaintop removal coal mining corporations don't get away with treating our streams like dumps," said Vivian Stockman, of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.
"Fortunately, we have the Clean Water Act, which allows citizen groups to step up and defend our water. We have no chance to build a better future if we don't have clean water," Stockman said.
Liz Wiles, chair of the West Virginia Sierra Club, stated, "The court's ruling further underscores the ongoing failure of West Virginia regulators to respond to this crisis. We need action - from the states and from EPA - to protect our streams."
The next step in the Fola case will be to determine the appropriate remedies for these permit violations, in the form of civil penalties payable to the U.S. Treasury and injunctive relief to clean up the streams.
"Losing diversity in aquatic life, as sensitive species are extirpated and only pollution-tolerant species survive, is akin to the canary in a coal mine," Judge Chambers wrote.
"As key ingredients to West Virginia's once abundant clean water, the upper reaches of West Virginia's complex network of flowing streams provide critical attributes that support the downstream water quality relied upon by West Virginians for drinking water, fishing and recreation, and important economic uses. Protecting these uses is the overriding purposed of West Virginia's water quality standards and the goal of the state's permit requirements."
Coal companies claim the Clean Water Act and Obama's "War on Coal" is destroying West Virginia's coal industry, blaming it on the loss of WV mining jobs.
Industry analysts say a bigger problem is a changing market for the kind of coal produced in WV and the rising use of natural gas.
See earlier story FOLA COAL REACHES DEAL OVER WATER POLLUTION - Company Threatened To Lay-Off Hundreds Clay-Nicholas
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