Consol Official Says Fish Kill Not Caused by Company's Pollution

West Virginia Public Broadcasting
1 October 2009
By Emily Corio

Consol officials blamed an algae bloom and discounted the role of their own mine’s pollution in creating a fish kill on Dunkard Creek in Monongalia County last month.

But local residents still wonder what caused the algae to grow in Dunkard Creek.

Brett Harvey, CEO and President of Consol Energy and CNX Gas Corporation , a subsidiary of Consol, says the company will fix the polluted water discharged from a nearby mine if it’s proven responsible for the fish kill.

Harvey was in Morgantown Thursday, speaking to West Virginia University students and faculty about business ethics.

“I’m a mining engineer, so I believe if we extract things from the earth we can create value for society and that value has to really make value for society,” Harvey said. “Is the world better because of what we did? And did we extract from the earth in a proper form to protect the environment as well as advance society?”

Some environmental groups would say no when it comes to the company’s Blacksville Mine in Monongalia County.

Water discharged from this mine does not meet clean water standards because of excess chlorides and it’s been this way since at least 2002.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection knows this and on repeated occasions has given the company more time to comply. Consol currently has until 2013.

In an interview after the speech, Harvey said his company is working on solutions and will fix the problem if it’s proven responsible for this fish kill. But one treatment option---sending the mine water through a reverse osmosis process---is too expensive.

“Adding a reverse osmosis would probably change the longevity of the mine,” Harvey said. “It might be more expensive, then you shut the mine down, that’s the end of those jobs.”

As Harvey was speaking to reporters, Consol Energy Spokesman, Joe Cerenzia, stepped into the conversation. He said the mine water discharged into Dunkard Creek wasn’t causing a problem until last month.

“It’s two separate issues. The fish kill happened because of other circumstances,” Cerenzia said. “The brine water, the chlorides in the water that were discharged for the past however many years, the fish were fine and all of the aquatic life in Dunkard Creek were surviving just fine. It’s this additional element that was put in there that has changed the dynamics of this whole situation.”

The additional element Cerenzia is referring to is the algae bloom, which regulators say was fed by Consol’s chloride discharges.

But it’s not just the pollution that’s been released into the stream, another problem could be what’s been taken out.

Cerenzia confirmed that Consol has taken water out of Dunkard creek to augment flow in another stream but after the fish kill, they stopped.

West Virginia does not regulate water withdrawals. Lower water levels from the withdrawals and lack of rain could have made the chlorides more concentrated.

This week, watershed groups in the area called on the Environmental Protection Agency to take over the investigation from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

In the meantime, Consol has stopped releasing water from its Blacksville mine into Dunkard Creek. The water is being stored in the underground mine instead.