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This article originally provided by
The Appalachian News Express
By Russ Cassady Staff Writer
Two environmental groups have notified a local coal company that
they will be filing suit over two allegedly illegal valley fills.
Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and the Sierra Club issued the
letter on Tuesday to Corbin-based TECO Coal Corporation president
J.J. Shackleford and Pikeville-based engineer Tim Malone, informing
them the organizations will be filing a lawsuit in 60 days regarding
a surface mine in the Grapevine area of Pike County.
According to a statement by KFTC, local resident Rully Urias and
Sierra Club organizer John Cleveland visited the site of the mine at
Millers Creek and saw two valley fills and ponds that were not
approved on any permit.
A valley fill is where material taken from a surface coal mine is
dumped into a valley below the mine site.
A followup conversation with officials from the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, which must approve any new fills, revealed that they were
aware of the violation because Clintwood Elkhorn had self-reported
the violation but no action had been taken.
The Millers Creek watershed goes into the headwaters of Fishtrap
Lake.
The letter claims that the company violated the Clean Water Act by
not waiting until a permit was in place before beginning the valley
fills.
Joe Lovett, with the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the
Environment, wrote in the letter that the organizations would be
willing to discuss effective remedies for the violations.
“However, we do not intend to delay the filing of a complaint in
federal court if discussions are continuing when that period ends,”
he wrote.
Urias told the News-Express Wednesday that he feels the company’s
actions are “not right,” and that he would like to see the lawsuit
result in action.
“What I’d like to see come out of it is for the mines to have to
take the valley fills out,” Urias said. “I’d like to see them have
to take the valley fills out and put it back as close as possible to
how God made it.”
Urias said he feels that often, regulatory agencies are left in the
dark as to what coal companies are actually doing.
“Half the time it happens so fast the inspectors aren’t going to be
able to catch it,” he said.
The Millers Creek area includes an access point to public lands at
Fishtrap, which Urias said will be unusable if the company is
allowed to continue taking this sort of action.
Clintwood Elkhorn Director of Operations Gary B. Cox said Wednesday
that he had not seen the letter, but the company would be willing to
comment once it has had a chance to review it.
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