This article originally provided by The Charleston Gazette

May 29, 2003

Massey slurry spills in Logan

Company blames worn-out pipe

By Ken Ward Jr.
STAFF WRITER

Massey Energy officials on Wednesday blamed a worn-out pipe casing for another in a series of slurry spills from the company’s Southern West Virginia operations.

Department of Environmental Protection officials said that the spill from Bandmill Coal Co. blackened a seven-mile stretch of the Guyandotte River in Logan County.

The spill occurred at the same Bandmill operation where another release occurred in October 2002. The Bandmill operation is near Dehue, on Rum Creek, just north of another Bandmill operation that caused a July 2002 flood on Winding Shoals Hollow, near Lyburn.

DEP spokeswoman Jessica Greathouse said agency inspectors estimated that about 2,700 gallons of slurry were released.

The release lasted about a half hour, starting at 2:30 a.m., Greathouse said. It was reported to DEP at 5:20 a.m., she said.

Greathouse said that the spill came from a pipe that Bandmill workers use to pump coal preparation plant waste into an old, underground mine workings for disposal.

Katharine Kenny, a spokeswoman for Richmond, Va.-based Massey, said that company officials believe a steel casing around the pipe became worn “in a specific way” that caused it to break.

“It isn’t some systematic problem,” Kenny said.

Bandmill did not shut its preparation plant down, Kenny said. Instead, the company moved the slurry injection to another underground mine site about 1,000 feet away.

Greathouse said that DEP inspectors issued an “imminent harm cessation order,” the most serious citation the agency uses.

DEP also plans to issue an order that requires Massey to show why the Bandmill operation should not be shut down because of repeated violations, Greathouse said.

In March, two other Massey subsidiaries paid a total of $400,000 in fines for criminal violations of the federal Clean Water Act related to blackwater spills at their operations.

Kenny said there is no reason to question why Massey continues to have such spills.

“I don’t think that’s fair,” she said. “These kind of things occur with most coal companies periodically.

“We are spending a considerable effort to keep them from occurring. I don’t think any of them were tied to any bigger issues. Each was a unique event.

“We may not have been able to prevent them. There has been nothing that has happened repeatedly.”

To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348-1702.