Companies Snookered DEP
Washington PA Observer-Reporter
25 April 2010:
By Andrew Liebhold
It is a clever but sad ploy when the coal industry tricks state
taxpayers into paying to pollute their own water.
In 2003 AMDRI, a subsidiary of the West Virginia coal and power
generating companies Dana Mining & GenPower, received more than $13
million in Pennsylvania grants and loans to build the "Steel Shaft
Site" near Davistown. This project ostensibly was designed to lower the
rising waters building in the abandoned Shannopin mine that were
threatening to break out into Dunkard Creek and the Mon River.
The benefit to Dana was that lowering water levels would allow them to
mine coal in the Sewickley seam, and the benefit to the state was that
it would avert the spill of acid mine water. The whole deal sounded
sweet because AMDRI promised that it would only temporarily discharge
water into Dunkard Creek because the plan was to clean the polluted
water and pipe it to the Longview power plant for use in cooling.
The deal was even sweeter because AMDRI promised to establish a trust
fund to treat the polluted Shannopin Mine water in perpetuity. In
exchange, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
granted AMDRI permission to temporarily exceed its water quality
standards when it discharged directly into Dunkard Creek prior to
changing its flow to the Longview plant.
Unfortunately, the deal began to unravel in 2008 when Dana/GenPower
announced that the water from the Steel Shaft site was too polluted for
its purposes and that the Longview plant would instead draw water from
the Mon river. However, the DEP continued to give AMDRI permission to
pump its polluted water into Dunkard Creek.
Even more incredulous, the DEP allowed AMDRI to double the amount of
water flowing into the creek by diverting water from the abandoned
Humphrey mine. This mine has never been in danger of breaking out and
was never included in the original agreement to build the plant.
The water discharged into Dunkard by AMDRI is very high in total
dissolved solids. AMDRI's permit to exceed TDS levels in its discharge
expired almost two years ago, but DEP allows it to continue.
A study conducted by the DEP in 2009 concluded that TDS levels from the
AMDRI site were severely impairing aquatic life in Dunkard Creek.
Furthermore, the AMDRI source is a major contributor of excess TDS in
the Mon River; over the last two summers, TDS levels have exceeded safe
drinking water standards several times, and this threatens the safety
of the water drawn from the Mon by virtually all municipal water
systems in the region. Finally, excess TDS from the Blacksville No. 2
mine were found to be the cause of the algae bloom causing the massive
fish kill in Dunkard Creek in September 2009.
The high TDS levels created by the AMDRI site are setting the stage for
a repeat of this disaster.
While the danger of TDS was not fully understood in 2003 when the state
funded AMDRI, this problem is now well-known, and we face a TDS crisis
in Dunkard Creek and the Mon River. And AMDRI has reneged on its
agreement to use the minepool water for cooling instead of dumping it
in Dunkard Creek. It has also reneged on its promise to establish a
trust fund for treatment of minepool water in the future.
The time has come for the DEP to face the reality that it has been
snookered in this deal. Discharge of polluted water into Dunkard Creek
at the AMDRI site should stop immediately and only resume when
discharges can meet state water quality standards. If DEP does not
address this matter immediately, we will be faced with a disaster that
pales in comparison to the recent Dunkard Creek fish kill.
Andrew Liebhold is a government research scientist, a resident of Perry
Township and board member of Friends of Dunkard Creek.