Questions Remain in Dunkard Creek Fish Kill
The State Journal
8 October 2009
Story by Pam Kasey
MORGANTOWN -- Environmental protection officials are considering action
against CONSOL Energy five weeks into the investigation of a fish and
mussel kill on Dunkard Creek.
"It would be a stretch to say there are not grounds for an enforcement
action," said Scott Mandirola, director of the state Department of
Environmental Protection's Division of Water and Waste Management.
Division of Natural Resources fisheries biologist Frank Jernejcic said
the kill is the worst of hundreds he has investigated.
Until September, Dunkard Creek was known for its smallmouth bass and
its muskie, some of them 40 inches long, according to Jernejcic. It
also supported the most diverse population of mussels in the
Monongahela basin.
But in the days and weeks since the first dead fish was reported Sept.
1, essentially all of the fish and mussels died on more than 30 miles
of the creek, from near St. Leo in the southwest headwaters to Mount
Morris
The WVDEP has laid the blame on a bloom of golden algae, Prymnesium
parvum. First identified in Texas in 1985, the algae thrive in brackish
-- salty -- waters, according to online sources. In large numbers, a
toxin they secrete to kill microscopic prey becomes concentrated enough
to kill fish and mussels.
Many observers say if the algae are the immediate cause of the kill,
brackish water must be the more fundamental cause. They point to
WVDEP's suspension of water quality standards on Dunkard Creek for
CONSOL, which has been discharging salty mine drainage from its
Blacksville No. 2 mine near Wana for decades.
The West Virginia and Pennsylvania departments of environmental
protection, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the
Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission continue to investigate.
Many questions remain.
What About Water Withdrawals?
Large withdrawals from Dunkard Creek could have diminished the creek's
ability to dilute CONSOL's or other salty discharges adequately.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to know if such withdrawals were
taking place: DEP allows anyone to withdraw up to 750,000 gallons per
month from a water body of any size without report. But were flows
lower than normal?
The U.S. Geological Survey maintains a gage near the mouth of Dunkard
Creek.
Flow measured there may be a poor indication of flow upstream, where
the kill occurred, because the gage lies below several outfalls where
mine water is pumped from underground, treated and discharged.
Still, on 12 days in September, flow at that gage was the lowest it's
been on each of those days since the largest of the mine water
discharges began in 2005.
In addition, at least one very large withdrawal is known.
For several years, CONSOL has pumped water from a reservoir on the
creek at Brave, Pa., and trucked it upstream to replenish a tributary
de-watered by longwall mining subsidence.
"The extreme rate was probably two, three weeks prior to the fish
kill," said Verna Presley, who lives by the reservoir.
"They were pumping 24/7, three and four trucks in a row pulling up,"
said Presley, who kept a log of events during the fish kill. "The last
truck I saw pumping out was the 12th."
DEP did not answer questions about possible efforts to better regulate
water withdrawals before this story went to print.
Can the Algae Be Stopped?
Golden algae have been eradicated in aquaculture operations that are
limited in scope, according to West Virginia University microbiologist
Alan Sexstone, but that would be more difficult in an open stream.The
same goes for a "quarantine."
"If you think about aquatic birds or things like geese, there are many
ways that water from there might be spread to other streams," Sexstone
said.
WVDEP has said it is looking into options for control other than
algaecides.
Sexstone expressed hope that the algae might die off naturally.
"I'm not sure yet how well this organism will overwinter," he said.
"There are some conflicting reports on that. ... We'll have to look for
it again in the spring."
WVDEP has been taken to task in the media for language that purported
to suspend water quality standard for chlorides, one type of salt,
through 2013 in compliance orders it issued with CONSOL's discharge
permit in 2007 and 2008.
Mandirola concedes that DEP cannot suspend water quality standards
without EPA approval and said the agency will change the language.
At the same time, he said the appropriate language of interim limits
similarly would allow CONSOL to violate the water quality standard
while it implements a compliance plan on a 2013 timeline.
CONSOL submitted a plan last winter in which it would pipe its
discharges to the Monongahela River, he said, but that plan was not
approved because the river already has problems with salts from coal
mine and gas well brine discharges.
The State Journal asked CONSOL President and CEO J. Brett Harvey why
the company doesn't use an existing treatment technology, such as
reverse osmosis.
"If you just build a reverse osmosis plant it might be more expensive
-- then you shut the mine down, that's the end of those jobs," said
Harvey. "We're looking for the right balance."
But Mandirola said reverse osmosis is not off the table.
"That's what we're trying to get CONSOL to spend its money on," he
said. "We feel that there's technology out there; there are just
engineering issues that need to be dealt with."
CONSOL's compliance order provisions will be changed, Mandirola said,
to reflect the conclusions of the fish kill investigation; however, he
expects the target of 2013 to remain in place.
Could CONSOL Be Liable?
Mandirola said he was unprepared to discuss the grounds of a possible
WVDEP enforcement action. Meanwhile, Jernejcic is estimating the losses
on Dunkard Creek.
"Everything has to be documented and correlated so when somebody looks
at it next year or the year after or we go to court, we can make sense
of all of it," he said.
Lawyers close to the situation say that whether CONSOL could be liable
for the damage to Dunkard Creek will depend, in part, on what is known
as "permit shield" -- essentially, the idea that compliance with the
provisions of a permit or even with the intent of the permitters
protects a discharger from liability.