WVU Researchers Call for State Monitoring of Coal Slurry
Charleston Gazette
9 August 2010
By Lawrence Messina
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A team of researchers suggested to legislators
Monday that West Virginia start monitoring coal slurry even though
their just-released study found no hazards to public health.
The West Virginia University scientists cited the "huge" data gap that
hindered their efforts, and called it "logical" that the wastewater
played a role in some of the increases in toxins they found.
"We can't assure safety. We didn't find a health hazard," said Dr. Alan
Ducatman, the study's lead investigator and a physician.
Ducatman and fellow researcher Paul Ziemkiewicz said the results left
them unable to say whether the state should end or extend its ban on
new sites for pumping slurry underground. Coal operators inject this
liquid left over from washing coal into exhausted mines as a cheap way
to store it.
The researchers also said that filling the data gap would require a
large-scale, long-lasting and costly study that would likely require
federal funding and substantial advance planning.
While the industry defends this storage method as safe, critics argue
that both blasting and natural shifting beneath the earth can allow
this slurry to leak into drinking water supplies. Residents of such
communities as Prenter and Rawl have sued coal companies, alleging
slurry has poisoned their wells and made them sick.
The Department of Environmental Protection provided the study's testing
data and has said it excluded Prenter and Rawl because of the pending
lawsuits. Several members of the House-Senate panel that received the
study results Monday questioned that decision.
"My concern is, we didn't check those places," Delegate Tim Manchin,
D-Fairmont, said at one point.
Delegate Don Perdue said the Department of Health and Human Resources,
which assigned the study to the WVU researchers, should have pushed to
include those sites.
"You should have been driving that issue, because it is one of public
health," said Perdue, D-Wayne, who chairs the House's health committee.
"Where a health issue of this magnitude is involved, you should be on
an equal playing field with DEP."
But Delegate Mike Ross, D-Randolph, cited the absence of findings
linking slurry to health hazards. He noted the industry's role in the
economy of West Virginia, the country's second-largest coal producer.
Analyzing tests results from four injection sites, the researchers
found no unsafe levels of some of the worst toxins found in slurry such
as arsenic, lead and selenium. They did find raised levels of such
lesser toxins as aluminum, iron and manganese, but could not identify
slurry as the culprit.
"We did not document a health hazard that is specifically related to
coal slurry injection," Ducatman said. "This does not imply that the
safety of this practice is assured."
He and Ziemkiewicz recommended a monitoring program that checked for a
wide range of hazardous substances and involved frequent sampling --
including before slurry is pumped into a new underground storage site.
DEP began requiring operators at the dozen or so existing injection
sites to monitor for potential pollution problems last year, after its
review of testing data proved inconclusive. It also announced a
temporary moratorium on new site.