This article originally provided by The Herald-Dispatch

March 16, 2006

Patricia Feeney: Coal sludge disposal is costing us safe, clean water

The coal industry's destruction of our region's fresh water is one of the most dangerous externalized costs of the industry. People pay the costs of coal companies' irresponsible disposal of coal sludge in the form of increased water treatment, eroded pipes, orange, black or dried-up streams and sky-high health care bills.

National Coal Association President Bill Caylor says, "Sludge is just dirt." Others claim that sludge cannot contaminate water because coal seams naturally filter ground water.

Coal can filter water when in a solid, contained form, but break it up and mix it with chemicals used to clean coal, and you have increased surface area and altered pH. These conditions allow metals -- many toxic and carcinogenic, such as mercury, arsenic, and lead -- to be released.

Humans cannot breathe air or drink water laden with heavy metals and be expected to live healthy lives. People in the coal fields are dying, with contaminated streams and once-pristine wells now too toxic for skin contact.

Government employees may have the best of intentions, but the lack of funding, regulations and staff leave them ill-equipped to protect people.

There have been
338 permitted injections of coal prep plant sludge into underground mines in West Virginia since 2000, when the DEP began to keep tabs. Massey company records document coal sludge injections at least since the 1980s, and former workers recall conducting injections underground during the 1960s.

No one knows how much sludge has been pumped underground. Only one person in West Virginia is employed in the permitting and enforcement of underground injections into abandoned coal mines. That person relies on coal companies to monitor their own impact to groundwater, which is like relying on citizens to write tickets for themselves every time they go over the speed limit.

The technology exists to dispose of sludge responsibly, but coal companies choose to sacrifice human safety rather than to pay a dollar or so more a ton. I wonder what our region would look like if coal executives put some of those millions they spend on buying our government leaders and actually tried conducting business honestly and responsibly in the first place.

No matter where you live in West Virginia, please call your representatives today and tell them that health and safety need to extend beyond the mine gate to mining communities. Ask for their support of sludge safety laws.

You can find out who your representatives are and leave them a message by calling this toll free number: (877) 565-3447.

If you all in West Virginia can get this legislation passed, then maybe our legislators here in Kentucky will step up and do what's right for the health and safety of the people.

You can find more information at www.sludgesafety.org.

Patricia Feeney lives in Letcher Co, Ky. She works with the Appalachian Coalition for Just and Sustainable Communities' Water Security Project. She can be contacted at (606) 632-0051 or tricia@appcoalition.org.