Pa. Points to Mine Discharge for Dunkard Creek Fish Kill
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
13 October 2009
By Don Hopey
A heretofore undisclosed underground flow of mine pool water between
Consol Energy's Blacksville No. 1 and No. 2 mines may have contributed
to the highly salty, polluted discharges that caused the massive,
month-long fish kill on Dunkard Creek.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said stream
sampling shows discharges high in dissolved solids and chlorides from
Consol Energy's Blacksville No. 2 Mine are the "primary immediate
source" of the fish kill that last month wiped out aquatic life on 35
miles of the 38-mile stream that meanders along the Pennsylvania-West
Virginia border.
But the DEP, in a letter dated Wednesday, has also asked Consol to
provide information of the underground connections between its active
Blacksville No. 2 Mine in West Virginia and its inactive Blacksville
No. 1 Mine in Pennsylvania, and requested that the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency revoke a deep well injection permit for coalbed
methane waste water at the inactive mine.
The DEP also said it has obtained information that the mine pool in the
inactive mine is flowing into the mine pool in Blacksville No. 2.
Consol has previously said that the wastewater from the inactive
Blacksville No. 1 mine is not flowing into the active Blacksville No. 2
mine.
Fish, freshwater mussels, salamanders and aquatic insects started dying
on Sept. 1 and continued dying throughout the month.
The Pennsylvania DEP has also asked the West Virginia DEP, in a letter
dated Oct. 2, to "take necessary enforcement measures" to control
pollution discharges of total dissolved solids, chlorides and sulfides
from the Blacksville No. 2 mine treatment facility.
That treatment facility stopped treating and pumping mine water into
the creek as the fish kill progressed last month, but Pennsylvania DEP
wants assurances that the earlier pollution loads will not resume when
it becomes necessary for Consol to resume pumping water out of its
active mine.
"We have also observed that the levels of chlorides being discharged
from . . . the Blacksville No. 2 Mine are unusually high for a
discharge solely from a deep mine," the Pennsylvania DEP said in that
Oct. 2 letter. "Although Consol is primarily liable for its discharge
from (Blacksville No. 2) and any consequences that result from that
discharge, DEP is suspicious of other sources of chlorides that might
be discharged into the Blacksville No. 2 Mine or into one of the mine
pools connected to the Blacksville No. 2 Mine."
In its six-page Oct. 7 letter to Consol, the Pennsylvania DEP requested
extensive discharge and flow records dating back five years for the
Blacksville No. 1 and No. 2 mines, the Morris Run Borehole where the
coalbed methane drilling wastewater was injected into the Blacksville
No. 1 Mine, and information about Consol's management of interconnected
mine pools in the area of southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West
Virginia.
More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Don Hopey can be reached at dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.