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Scary time in the hollow By
Greg Stone LYBURN — 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 By
Ken Ward Jr. 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.” DEP warned of major flaws in Logan By
Ken Ward Jr. Two months ago, a state Department of Environmental Protection inspector warned that a Massey Energy valley fill in Logan County had major flaws. In a May 14 report, supervising inspector Joe Hager wrote that the Winding Shoals valley fill’s drain was clogged and that part of the structure had “liquefied.” “Concerns exist due to 1) lack of sediment control in Winding Shoals [valley fill] area with residents below; 2) liquefied condition of lower portion of fill; and 3) apparent plugged underdrain,” Hager wrote. “Critical toe area is full of sediment,” he wrote. “Future rains will possibly cause additional water quality problems.” Hager wrote that report after problems with the fill and pond sent debris down the hollow, into the nearby community. On Friday morning, the same thing happened again — only much worse. After a three-hour rain, parts of the toe and face of the fill eroded. Water and debris poured into a sediment pond at the bottom of the fill. The pond overflowed, sending floodwaters and debris down the hollow toward the community of Lyburn. More than a dozen homes were damaged. Massey subsidiary Bandmill Coal Co. fixed the problems outlined by Hager by June 13, according to DEP records. Bandmill was fined about $14,000 for those violations and for taking so long to fix them. Previously, DEP officials had reported that by the time the May 13 problems were fixed, Bandmill had allowed another pond to fill. On Monday, Hager said that was incorrect. Actually, the initial action, a cessation order, was downgraded to a notice of violation. In early June, Bandmill was cited again. This time, the company violated its own plan for creating additional space on the permit to store material cleaned out of its sediment ponds. Bandmill did not install proper sediment controls at the storage location, DEP records show. Since it bought the site from Pittston Coal in mid-1998, Massey has been cited repeatedly for not properly controlling sediment and runoff. In particular, the company has not regularly cleaned out sediment control ponds before they become 60 percent full, as required by state regulations. 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. Several times, DEP inspectors have also noted that Bandmill had not reclaimed the site fast enough to prevent valley fill erosion. “Certainly, we would have liked to have it reclaimed much faster,” Hager said. “This is a problem that is not uncommon. We would like to see things reclaimed concurrently.” In September 2001, for example, DEP inspectors cited Bandmill for not properly constructing and maintaining sediment control structures. An inspection report reviewed Monday showed that citation stemmed from problems with the valley fill involved in Friday’s flood. Inspectors flying over the site in a DEP helicopter found a “large sediment delta accumulated” in the pond at the base of the Winding Shoals valley fill. The inspectors saw, “No recent work to re-grade” slopes between the Winding Shoals valley fill and an adjacent fill, records show. Still, in October 2001 and again this April, engineers from Summit Engineering, working for Massey, certified that Winding Shoals fill and its sediment pond were in good shape. DEP officials have noted by the time Friday’s flood occurred, Bandmill was no longer producing coal at the site, called the Tower Mountain mountaintop removal mine. In 2000, the company mined more than 800,000 tons of coal at Tower Mountain. And during a 12-month period from September 1999 to August 2000, the company was cited by DEP for at least 12 environmental violations. At least four of those citations concerned improper sediment control. Under West Virginia mining law, the DEP may suspend or revoke permits for operations that violate environmental rules two or more times during any 12-month period. If a company violates the law three or more times during a 12-month period, DEP is required to review its record and determine whether the permit should be suspended or revoked. Hager said that he did not know why DEP never suspended or revoked the Bandmill permit for the violations in 1999 and 2000. A more recent string of citations — at least three separate incidents since March 20, not counting Friday’s — was also not reviewed for possible permit suspension or revocation. Hager said that might be an oversight caused in part by a personnel shortage at the DEP Logan field office. Several employees there have transferred to other agency jobs, he said. Late last year, Hager lost the inspector who had been assigned to the Bandmill site for more than two years. In February, that inspector’s replacement also moved on to another DEP job. On Monday, Hager said that the company was technically shut down for two weeks by the cessation order issued following the May 13 incident. But that closure was simply the result of an order that required the company to focus on fixing the immediate sediment control problems — not because of a determination by DEP that Bandmill had committed what state rules call a “pattern of violations.” Hager said that DEP officials are now reviewing five violations dating back to September to determine if they constitute a pattern that warrants a permit suspension or revocation. Suspending or revoking a permit where no coal production is occurring, though, is a tough call for DEP, agency officials said. Because the company isn’t mining coal, a suspension wouldn’t really hurt the operator. A revocation, on the other hand, would block Massey from any new mining permits anywhere in the country.
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