Read more in Coal Tatto.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A Fayette County strip mine that has repeatedly exceeded water pollution limits and not fixed other violations should not have its permit renewed, citizen groups say in an appeal to the state Surface Mine Board.

Lawyers for the Ansted Historical Preservation Council and the Sierra Club said they were challenging the state Department of Environmental Protection's renewal of the permit for CONSOL Energy's Powellton Coal subsidiary's Bridge Fork West Surface Mine.

The 465-acre operation is located between the Gauley and New rivers, north of Ansted and Gauley Bridge.

"This permit renewal would lead to pollution of our famed rivers, more blasting and air pollution, and more damage to our tourism industry, so we firmly oppose this renewal," said Father Roy Gene Crist, president of the Ansted Historical Preservation Council.

DEP spokeswoman Kathy Cosco declined comment.

Tom Hoffman, spokesman for CONSOL, said the company believes the permit was appropriately renewed and would "defend the validity of the permit."

In February, more than 100 people turned out for a DEP public hearing on the proposed permit renewal. No one spoke in favor of the renewal.

Read more in Coal Tatto.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A Fayette County strip mine that has repeatedly exceeded water pollution limits and not fixed other violations should not have its permit renewed, citizen groups say in an appeal to the state Surface Mine Board.

Lawyers for the Ansted Historical Preservation Council and the Sierra Club said they were challenging the state Department of Environmental Protection's renewal of the permit for CONSOL Energy's Powellton Coal subsidiary's Bridge Fork West Surface Mine.

The 465-acre operation is located between the Gauley and New rivers, north of Ansted and Gauley Bridge.

"This permit renewal would lead to pollution of our famed rivers, more blasting and air pollution, and more damage to our tourism industry, so we firmly oppose this renewal," said Father Roy Gene Crist, president of the Ansted Historical Preservation Council.

DEP spokeswoman Kathy Cosco declined comment.

Tom Hoffman, spokesman for CONSOL, said the company believes the permit was appropriately renewed and would "defend the validity of the permit."

In February, more than 100 people turned out for a DEP public hearing on the proposed permit renewal. No one spoke in favor of the renewal.

Among those who have opposed the permit renewal is the National Park Service, which wrote a letter to DEP complaining that "extensive violations" of water pollution limits by the mine "causes us great concern for potential threats" to the New River Gorge National River and the Gauley River National Recreation Area.

Citizen groups noted that coal operators are not guaranteed to receive five-year renewals of mining permits. Such renewals must be denied, the groups said, if companies are not complying with those permits or have unabated violations on record.

In their appeal notice, they note that the Bridge Fork mine "is responsible for nearly 2,500 days of" water pollution violations since February 2007, with one-quarter of those violations occurring in November and December 2008, after the permit renewal application was filed.

Citizen groups also noted that the mine has two unabated violations on record.

One violation was cited when the company did not follow its agency-approved mine sequence map, putting pollution outfalls in the wrong locations and not keeping its reclamation up to date.

The other violation cited the company for mining outside its permitted area, and allowing waste rock and dirt to slide off that permitted area.

"The region in which Powellton's mine is located is one of West Virginia's tourism gems, and the New and the Gauley are the premier whitewater rafting rivers in the East," wrote citizen group lawyers Derek Teaney and Joe Lovett.

"Yet Powellton treats the streams and lands surrounding its permit areas as dumping grounds for the waste from its mines."

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