Mingo(West VA) residents sue over mining, flooding

September 17, 2009
Mingo residents sue over mining, flooding
By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer
Advertiser

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Twenty Mingo County families have filed a lawsuit alleging that strip mining related to construction of the King Coal Highway caused flooding that damaged their homes.

Melissa Lester, her family and 19 other families in the Murphy Branch area of Pigeon Creek, near Rawl, sued four coal companies in Mingo Circuit Court. Named as defendants were Alpha Natural Resources, Nicewonder Contracting, White Flame Energy and Cobra Natural Resources.

The suits blame unpermitted mining that allegedly did not include construction of runoff control structures that would typically be required by regulators.

Mining in the area, the suits allege, has "exacerbated flooding because inadequate or non-existent stormwater control, failure to return the land to Approximate Original Contour and other deviations from accepted standards of care increased peak-load water flow and proximately caused flooding and flood-related damages."

Jason Hammond, a lawyer for the defendants, refused comment Thursday afternoon.

The King Coal Highway is intended to run roughly parallel to U.S. 52 from the outskirts of Huntington to near Bluefield. The new four-lane highway will tie into the new Interstate 73/74, which will extend from Michigan to Myrtle Beach.

Mining companies became involved to build part of the roadbed with waste rock and dirt from adjacent mountaintop removal coal mining sites.

State and federal regulators allowed at least some of this mining to proceed without strip-mining permits, because they concluded it fell under an exemption for mining that is "an incidental part" of highway construction.

But the new lawsuits allege that, "Rather, the King Coal Highway construction is incident to the primary purpose of mining coal at the Red Jacket Project site, without following regulations intended to protect the public from just the sort of catastrophe that occurred in the instant case."

The lawsuits cite two earlier flooding events in May 2008 that "should certainly have alerted" the mining companies "that their stormwater runoff control structures, if any were in place at all, were woefully inadequate along the Pigeon Creek watershed."

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1702

http://wvgazette.com/News/200909170305