ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 27, 1996 TAG: 9611270058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
A mass of coal-blackened water has escaped from a mining company waste pond into a Southwest Virginia river for the second time in just over a month.
The latest spill occurred early Tuesday morning near Oakwood in Buchanan County at a slurry pond owned by Consolidation Coal Co., said Mike Abbott, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. The pond handles waste from a coal-washing plant serving Consol's Buchanan No.1 coal mine.
Abbott said that an estimated 1,000 gallons per minute of waste water flowed from the pond into Garden Creek, eventually flowing into the Levisa Fork River. By 11:15 a.m. the discharge was below Grundy, 131/2 miles downstream from the pond and 13 miles away from the Kentucky state line.
The spill was very similar to one that occurred Oct. 24 near St.Charles in Lee County from a pond owned by a subsidiary of Arch Mineral Corp. of St.Louis, Mo. As in the Lee County spill, waste water from the Buchanan County pond escaped into an old underground mine before finding its way into the creek.
As a result of the Lee County spill, the state on Nov. 19 proposed civil penalties totalling $15,000 for violations of state mining laws against Lone Mountain Processing Inc., the Arch subsidiary. In that case, the state cited the company for negligence because it had discharged waste water into Virginia waters several times throughout the year and had had a similar spill in August, after which it had failed to take steps to prevent further spills, according to a letter to the company from the state mines department.
Black water from the Lee County spill found its way through a series of creeks into the Powell River where fine coal dust smothered and killed thousands of fish. Abbott said he had not received any reports of fish being killed from the Buchanan spill as of late Tuesday afternoon.
Regardless, Virginia notified Kentucky officials of the spill, Abbott said. Kentucky's Fishtrap Lake is located on the Levisa Fork not far from the Virginia line. The Levisa Fork eventually runs into the Big Sandy River in northern Kentucky.
Abbott said that state officials were notified of the discharge at 5 a.m. Tuesday by workers at another Consol mine who reported water running out of a coal seam near the mine's ventilation shaft. The discharge from the pond began to taper off by the afternoon, he said.
No property damage was associated with the spill, Abbott said. State officials will be monitoring the affected streams and taking water samples through the weekend, he said.
Charles Eppes, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, said DEQ inspectors also were on the scene Tuesday.
Consolidation Coal Co. is based in Pittsburgh, Pa. The company's Buchanan No.1 mine is by far Virginia's largest, producing about 3 million tons of coal annually.
The company could not be reached for comment.
LENGTH: Medium: 58 linesby CNB