July 15, 2009
DEP's regulation of slurry injection criticized
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Read more in Coal Tattoo
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Coalfield citizens on Wednesday harshly criticized the state Department of Environmental Protection's efforts to study and regulate the underground injection of coal slurry wastes from preparation plants.
"DEP has shown they are incompetent to regulate the injection of coal slurry," said Joe Stanley, a former coal miner who works with a citizen coalition called the Sludge Safety Project.
Stanley was one of the speakers Wednesday afternoon who briefed lawmakers on environmental group reactions to the slurry injection study released in late May by DEP.
Lawmakers had mandated the study by DEP of slurry injection's potential water quality impacts. DEP was a year overdue in finishing its work, and a follow-up examination of possible health effects of slurry injection is just getting started by the state Department of Health and Human Resources.
Coal slurry injection has drawn citizen complaints and lawsuits over drinking water pollution, especially from residents in the Rawl area of Mingo County and the Prenter community in Boone County.
In its report, DEP said agency officials did not find damage to surface or groundwater quality caused by coal slurry alone. But, because the agency never required enough detail in slurry injection permit applications, study authors lacked enough information to really know for sure.
DEP Secretary Randy Huffman issued a moratorium on new slurry injection permits, but is allowed existing permits to continue pumping slurry underground and is working on improved permit procedures so that new permits can start being issued again.
But Stanley, joined by Wheeling Jesuit University scientist Ben Stout and Prenter activist Maria Lambert, said the Sludge Safety Project's own study found plenty of violations of water quality limits related to slurry injection.
"DEP is misleading you and misleading the citizens of West Virginia," Stanley told a joint legislative committee that monitors water resource issues.
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1702.
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"the Sludge Safety Project's own study found plenty of violations of water quality limits related to slurry injection."
The DEP's report also found a number of violations of water quality. Section M of Appendix II lists the violations the DEP charged the companies with. These list the slurry spills and also other non-water quality related violations at the site.
Appendix I has an individual report for each of the sites studied. There was no standardized method of presentation between those reports, so it is more difficult to directly site those violations, but the reports mention or list, depending on the report, the exceedences from regular testing performed as part of the permit requirements.
While the DEP had access to this data, the DEP did not issue fines as a result of the exceedences, a practice that extended to the entire mining program during the first half of the decade.
DEP makes tough decisions based on political will. Scientific evidence is ignored or easily manipulated to fit the opinions of our elected official's financial backers.
How can a taxpayer be properly represented when their elected official is worried more about pleasing their campaign donors than they are working for the public good? It’s all a sham.
One question to rwc: what is in coal slury?
Find out. Research what actions the dep has taken in the past to control the release of toxic chemicals into the environment. Then come back and consider your comment.
What good is a healthy business if that business is killing their neighbor?
An incomplete guide to chemicals in slury:
Reagent: neurotoxic: causes central and periphal nervouse system damage with long-term low level exposure.
Polyacrylamide (flock): degrades to acrylamide, only safe at levels measured in parts per billion. Causes problems like reagent plus parkinson-like symptoms. can lead to death.
Ethyline Glycol: (antifreeze)nervous system damage, liver, kidney, etc. death.
Go ahead...inject it into "your" well...I understand some people don's mind a drop of feces in their coolaid..slury shouldnt harm you either