DEP Allowed Consol to Exceed Chloride Limits in Dunkard Creek for
Years
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
23 September 2009
By Scott Finn, Emily Corio, Erica Peterson and Ben Adducchio
Scientists are looking at extremely high levels of chloride to blame
for the fish kill at Dunkard Creek.
Since at least 2002, mining company Consol Energy has been releasing
chloride into Dunkard Creek at higher levels than state standards
allow. But the West Virginia DEP has repeatedly given the company extra
time to comply.
Scientists looking at a massive fish kill on Dunkard Creek on the West
Virginia-Pennsylvania border are zeroing in on extremely high levels of
chloride, a chemical compound.
In September 2002, DEP officials found that Consol was violating water
quality standards by releasing high levels of chloride into streams at
several sites, including two along Dunkard Creek.
But three times – in 2004, 2007 and 2008 – the DEP issued compliance
orders giving Consol additional time to meet these standards.
In August 2008, the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the
Environment notified state officials it intended to sue. It was trying
to force Consol to comply with the federal Clean Water Act.
Just hours later, DEP officials sent out a public notice of its intent
to give Consol until 2013 to meet chloride standards.
DEP Director of Mining and Reclamation Tom Clarke says the chloride
wasn’t a problem until now.
“Until the past three weeks or so, the levels of chloride being
discharged by Consol had no impact on the fish that required us to
reassess the compliance schedule,” he said. “As I said earlier, with
this fish kill, until we know fully what killed the fish kill, we're
not willing to move forward with any plan with Consol.”
Now, scientists are asking whether extremely high chloride levels
recorded in Dunkard Creek caused the fish kill, such as Paul
Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute at
WVU.
“Things like chloride, excessive salt concentrations are all bad news
for fish. Acidity will kill fish, too high a pH will kill fish,”
Ziemkiewicz said.
“Fish are fairly sensitive creatures and you can’t just change water
quality on them real quickly,” he said.
Ziemkiewicz says in Dunkard Creek’s case, there seem to have been two
separate fish kill events over the course of several days.
“There are two kinds of fish kills: One where you have a singular event
where you have a very sharp spike in some contaminants. And you can
either catch that chemistry or you miss it. And if you miss it all you
see are dead fish and the chemistry profile is already gone,” he said.
“On the other hand, if you have a sustained output of contaminants,
then it’s a lot easier to trace to the source.”
In a Sept. 14 memo, EPA biologist Lou Reynolds blames the fish kill on
chloride from a major mine on Dunkard Creek: Consol’s Blacksville #2.
Reynolds writes: “At this time, all indications are that the outfall
from the Blacksville #2 mine is the likely culprit of this kill. The
high amount of chloride in that waste stream is certainly toxic to
aquatic organisms.”
Reynolds declined a request for an interview. Instead, an EPA
spokeswoman said the memo was intended for internal purposes, and the
agency is looking at all possible causes of the fish kill.
Consol Energy’s spokesman Tom Hoffman says it’s unlikely that chloride
from the Blacksville #2 acid mine drainage treatment plant is killing
fish.
"First the fish kill is a recent phenomenon. We have been discharging
into Dunkard Creek out at the Blacksville 2's current discharge site
for over a year, so I think it's unlikely that the chlorides in the
water discharge are the causative agent here,” Hoffman said.
“We are working under current DEP compliance order that gives us until
2013 to lower our total dissolved solid levels from mine discharge," he
said.
Hoffman also mentioned a holding pond at the Blacksville Mine as
another clue that the mine is not to blame.
“The pond where our water goes before it goes into Dunkard Creek has
live fish in it, which again is one of these pieces of data that make
you wonder what’s going on,” he said.
“If the discharge from Blacksville #2 were killing the fish in Dunkard
Creek, it ought to be killing the fish in the pond. But it has not.”
Upstream from Dunkard Creek, Consol has a second facility in St. Leo
treating acid mine drainage and releasing high levels of chloride into
the stream.
Hoffman said that although dead fish are being found upstream of the
Blacksville site, they’re not directly around the St. Leo treatment
plant – suggesting the source is coming from something else. He
suggests an algae bloom could be to blame.
So far, DEP officials have declined to release the results of their
water tests, saying this is an ongoing investigation. They say they
have not ruled out Blacksville or any other possibility.
Early on, speculation surrounded wastewater from gas drilling in the
area, which also is high in chlorides.
On Wednesday, DNR Biologist Frank Jernejcic continued to find dead fish
in the waters of Dunkard Creek, as buzzards fly above the mouth of
Miracle Run.
Jernejcic took pictures of the buzzards, the water, and the floating
dead fish.
“I see dead fish down here, they look like they are fresh, so I’ll go
down and look at them, check the state of decomposition, and get an
indication of how long ago they might have died,” Jernecic said.
Several have been dead a long time. And Jernejcic says any survivors
may be close to death, since the water is still toxic.
“There are only a few tributaries where they can crowd into the mouth,
and we have documented fewer each day in those tributaries,” he said.
Jernejcic says this fish kill is unlike anything he has seen. He thinks
any of the many theories presented about the cause of this kill could
be true.
“It’s very difficult to determine, given the nature of where the fish
have died and the timeline for them dying. None of this is following a
pattern that we have seen in previous fish kills,” he said.
“This is the toughest one I’ve ever been involved in.”