CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Hobet Mining Inc. will pay a nearly $1.5 million fine to resolve a lawsuit by state regulators over repeated selenium water-quality violations from its sprawling mountaintop removal operations along the Lincoln-Boone county line.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Hobet Mining Inc. will pay a nearly $1.5 million fine to resolve a lawsuit by state regulators over repeated selenium water-quality violations from its sprawling mountaintop removal operations along the Lincoln-Boone county line.
Hobet also will give the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection $500,000 worth of rocks, perform two studies of selenium impacts, and get credit for $1.5 million in "supplemental environmental protections," for installing selenium treatment systems at its mines.
As part of the deal, DEP officials are giving Hobet nearly two more years to stop those pollution violations.
A national expert on selenium has warned that the pollution is poisoning Mud River fish, leaving some with deformities and pushing the river ecosystem "to the brink of a major toxic event."
DEP Secretary Randy Huffman is fighting a state appeals board ruling that ordered his agency to more closely scrutinize industry efforts to clean up selenium pollution.
However, environmental group lawyers are hoping that federal court lawsuits will stop the industry and the DEP from continuing to delay compliance with West Virginia's water-quality limits for the toxic mineral.
"For six or seven years now, the operators and the DEP have known that the coal industry has a huge problem with selenium," said Joe Lovett, lawyer with the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. "We have tried to ensure that the state actually enforces the law, but the state is doing everything it can to allow the industry to violate the law."
Selenium, a naturally occurring element found in many rocks and soils, is an antioxidant that is needed in very small amounts for good health. In slightly larger amounts, though, selenium can be toxic. In aquatic life, very small amounts have been found to cause reproductive problems.
In 2003, a broad federal government study of mountaintop removal coal mining found repeated violations of water-quality limits for selenium in water downstream from mining operations.
Coal industry lobbyists have tried - so far unsuccessfully - to persuade lawmakers and the DEP to relax West Virginia's selenium limits. In 2004 and again in 2007, the DEP moved instead to give dozens of coal operations extensions of time to fix their selenium violations.
The selenium problems also have prompted a variety of legal actions, including administrative appeals, state court complaints and federal court lawsuits.
Last month, the state Environmental Quality Board mostly upheld the DEP's actions, but board members also criticized the agency for giving coal companies blanket compliance extensions.
The DEP has appealed the board ruling to Kanawha Circuit Court. A hearing is scheduled for Friday before Judge Duke Bloom.
Meanwhile, environmental groups filed federal lawsuits against Hobet and a sister company, Apogee Coal. Those lawsuits seek federal court orders that require the companies to halt their selenium violations.
After the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition began their citizen enforcement actions, the DEP decided to file its own lawsuit against Hobet in Boone Circuit Court.
Under the law, if state regulators are diligently pursuing their own case, environmental groups can't file citizen lawsuits.
Earlier this month, the DEP reached a proposed settlement with Hobet to resolve the agency's circuit court lawsuit over the company's selenium violations.
The settlement includes an initial payment of $500,000 in fines, and then 10 monthly payments of just less than $99,000 - for a total of $1.48 million in fines.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Hobet Mining Inc. will pay a nearly $1.5 million fine to resolve a lawsuit by state regulators over repeated selenium water-quality violations from its sprawling mountaintop removal operations along the Lincoln-Boone county line.
Hobet also will give the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection $500,000 worth of rocks, perform two studies of selenium impacts, and get credit for $1.5 million in "supplemental environmental protections," for installing selenium treatment systems at its mines.
As part of the deal, DEP officials are giving Hobet nearly two more years to stop those pollution violations.
A national expert on selenium has warned that the pollution is poisoning Mud River fish, leaving some with deformities and pushing the river ecosystem "to the brink of a major toxic event."
DEP Secretary Randy Huffman is fighting a state appeals board ruling that ordered his agency to more closely scrutinize industry efforts to clean up selenium pollution.
However, environmental group lawyers are hoping that federal court lawsuits will stop the industry and the DEP from continuing to delay compliance with West Virginia's water-quality limits for the toxic mineral.
"For six or seven years now, the operators and the DEP have known that the coal industry has a huge problem with selenium," said Joe Lovett, lawyer with the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. "We have tried to ensure that the state actually enforces the law, but the state is doing everything it can to allow the industry to violate the law."
Selenium, a naturally occurring element found in many rocks and soils, is an antioxidant that is needed in very small amounts for good health. In slightly larger amounts, though, selenium can be toxic. In aquatic life, very small amounts have been found to cause reproductive problems.
In 2003, a broad federal government study of mountaintop removal coal mining found repeated violations of water-quality limits for selenium in water downstream from mining operations.
Coal industry lobbyists have tried - so far unsuccessfully - to persuade lawmakers and the DEP to relax West Virginia's selenium limits. In 2004 and again in 2007, the DEP moved instead to give dozens of coal operations extensions of time to fix their selenium violations.
The selenium problems also have prompted a variety of legal actions, including administrative appeals, state court complaints and federal court lawsuits.
Last month, the state Environmental Quality Board mostly upheld the DEP's actions, but board members also criticized the agency for giving coal companies blanket compliance extensions.
The DEP has appealed the board ruling to Kanawha Circuit Court. A hearing is scheduled for Friday before Judge Duke Bloom.
Meanwhile, environmental groups filed federal lawsuits against Hobet and a sister company, Apogee Coal. Those lawsuits seek federal court orders that require the companies to halt their selenium violations.
After the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition began their citizen enforcement actions, the DEP decided to file its own lawsuit against Hobet in Boone Circuit Court.
Under the law, if state regulators are diligently pursuing their own case, environmental groups can't file citizen lawsuits.
Earlier this month, the DEP reached a proposed settlement with Hobet to resolve the agency's circuit court lawsuit over the company's selenium violations.
The settlement includes an initial payment of $500,000 in fines, and then 10 monthly payments of just less than $99,000 - for a total of $1.48 million in fines.
The settlement says that Hobet also will, spend $2.6 million on "supplemental environmental projects," or SEPs.
Under the settlement, an SEP is defined as "a project or activity which improves, protects or reduces risks to public health or the environment at large, and which Hobet is not required to undertake pursuant to either the permits or any federal, state or local law or regulation, or prior enforcement action against Hobet."
However, the Hobet deal gives the company $750,000 in SEP credit for each of two plans to install selenium treatment equipment at its mines.
Tom Clarke, acting DEP mining director, said those plans are actually pilot projects to see what kind of selenium treatment works best.
"Those are being done on a demonstration basis," Clarke said, "so we can figure out how they work in the coal business."
The DEP-Hobet deal also gives the company $300,000 in SEP credit for each of two projects to study selenium's impacts on water quality and aquatic life.
The deal also gives Hobet $500,000 in SEP credit for providing the DEP with 32,500 stones, each measuring 3 by 4 by 5 feet.
The DEP plans to use the stones in Coal River aquatic habitat restoration projects. The settlement requires DEP or agency contractors to pick up the stones at Hobet operations and haul them to the Coal River restoration sites.
The settlement does not require Hobet Mining to have treatment systems in place until Dec. 31, 2009. Compliance is not required until April 5, 2010.
In one of the federal court cases, U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers in late May gave Apogee Coal 30 days to submit a compliance plan and 90 days after that to implement its plan.
After a July 2 hearing, though, Chambers backed off that timeline.
In a two-page order, the judge said company testimony "did little to convince the court that adequate effort has been made towards achieving compliance." However, the judge added, the company "did present evidence demonstrating the impossibility of achieving compliance within the deadlines previously ordered by the court."
Chambers gave Apogee until July 24 to provide a timetable for its efforts to end selenium violations.
The judge noted that an environmental-group expert testified that a treatment system could be implemented within four to six months. He said he expected Apogee to come up with a "comparable timeframe."
Clarke acknowledged that the DEP's settlement with Hobet includes a much longer timeframe for compliance than contemplated by Chambers.
"I'm not going to characterize what the judge did as unreasonable," Clarke said. "I'm sure he believes it's reasonable, but I believe we're giving them a reasonable amount of time to comply and bring their discharge into compliance."
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 348-1702.
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It's cheaper for these companies to break the rules because the punishments are so light. Rather than a set fine amount, the fine should be a percentage of the company's income.