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.