Gray and muddy water drains into a pond before cascading downstream and across the road. The site of the failed retention pond remains vacant while the Department of Environmental Protection has given no indication that it will take action to check the black water that continues to run into Big Creek.
A gushing spill from a failed retention pond that began last night continues today, despite the state Department of Environmental Protection having been notified last night. The gray and muddy water is spilling out of Appalachian Fuels’ Big Creek strip mine in Fayette County.
A complaint was called in to the WVDEP Spill Hotline last night by a citizen who spotted the brown water gushing into the Gauley River just a couple of miles upriver from Gauley Bridge around 5:30 pm January 15th. Abandoned Mines Land inspectors visited the site and confirmed that a retention pond had failed. As yet, there appears to be no action to mitigate the spill.
A mile down the road from the retention pond and valleyfill, black water continues to run down the roadway and into Big Creek, which goes on to join the Gauley River downstream. The black water spill will affect residents living downstream from the site, bringing concerns about the environmental repercussions, pollution, and water poisoning.
The failed retention pond is part of a contour mine site operated by Appalachian Fuels above the town of Brownsville, West Virginia. The black water from the spill can be seen muddying the waters of the Gauley River as far downstream as the town of Gauley Bridge.
Tags: Climate Ground Zero, DEP, failed retention pond, MTR pollution
[...] Failed retention pond continues spilling despite WVDEP’s knowledge [...]
Blackwater ? Looks strangely similar to runoff from the (mud) slides in the golden state.
[...] 2007 « Failed retention pond continues spilling despite WVDEP’s knowledge Press Release: Dragline [...]
[...] Right Fork of Big Creek of the Gauley River in Fayette County, near Gauley Bridge. Read their posts here and here. (And see one of their photos [...]
[...] When we left Larry’s and we were following him off the mountain, he got a call. In the previous few days, a sediment pond had been breached at another mine site. Larry, who couldn’t reach media or photographers to document this, needed our help. We had cameras, and we could document whatever had happened. After driving for over an hour, we made it to the site. While we could see mud and muck oozing down the hollow, we couldn’t make it far enough up to see exactly what happened, which got us all down because it seemed that our excursion had been for nothing, but from our vantage point there was clear devastation, retention ponds had been breeched and debris, including “black water,” was being carried all the way out to the Gauley river. The picture to the right is from our friends at Climate Ground Zero. [...]
[...] water violations (WVDEP: here and here) from the pond that was shown in our posts about that spill, here and [...]