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The Manchin administration must revisit two dozen orders that gave coal operators three additional years to fix selenium pollution violations, a state appeals board ruled Thursday. By Staff writer The Manchin administration must revisit two dozen orders that gave coal operators three additional years to fix selenium pollution violations, a state appeals board ruled Thursday.
Environmental Quality Board members unanimously ruled that the Department of Environmental Protection wrongly gave the coal industry a blanket extension of time to comply with selenium limits.
In a 46-page decision, board members ordered DEP to come up with site-specific compliance schedules within 30 days. Companies affected include subsidiaries of Massey Energy, Magnum Coal and CONSOL Energy Inc., among others.
Board members sided with coal company lawyers on a variety of legal issues in the case, but also harshly criticized the industry and DEP for a slow and ineffective response to growing concern over selenium runoff from mining operations.
"Too much time has been wasted and too little has been done to address [the] problem," the board ruling said.
The board decision is the second time in two weeks that the DEP has been faulted for lax handling of coal industry selenium pollution.
On May 27, U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers threw out a DEP compliance order that gave Apogee Coal Co. three more years to clean up selenium violations at a mine in Logan County.
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