Elkhorn City residents question water quality

BY MARY MUSIC

STAFF WRITER

For about 20 years now, Elkhorn City resident Stevie Joe Mullins has been trucking spring water from the Breaks Interstate Park to his home in Elkhorn City.

He carries between eight to ten gallons on his ATV weekly from the natural spring at Ill Flats partly because “it tastes good,” but mostly because he doesn't want to drink pollutants or chemicals used to purify his drinking water.

Mullins, 54, grew up with well water and now has city water in his home, but he refuses to drink it.

“I know it is not good for you to drink every day,” he said. “I wouldn't drink city water no where that's been treated. The chemical standards and the impurities are high. I'd rather drink 100 pure water than 97 percent pure water.”

Two years before Elkhorn City residents signed up to get their water from the Mountain Water District, Mullins said they received continuous boil water advisories.

“Water is the basic requirement for health and life,” he said.

Two weeks ago, Mullins was camping on Carson Island, a location near the Blue Hole Pay Lake just below the Elkhorn City Hall. Mullins said that he walked up to his truck to get a change of clothes that Sunday afternoon and noticed, while walking back toward the camp that the river level had risen approximately two feet. That's when he said he noticed black water streaming down one side of the river.

The water, he said, ran like that for a few hours.

He blames a coal company that operates a loading out site located on the other side of the river.

“What they're doing is letting their waste overflow into the back slew of the river,” Mullins said, walking toward a section of the Russell Fork River near the old dilapidated East End Bridge, an area not far from Carson Island. “I love this river. It's probably the best thing we got here. It's just a coal company taking advantage of the river, breaking the laws, breaking the rules. It'd be just as easy for them to do it the right way instead of the wrong way. They could do it the right way and not hurt the environment, but that's not gonna to happen.”

The coal company operates from Ohio Street on the opposite side of the river, where a coal dock, or stock pile of coal, is located. Two residents live on Ohio Street, and they have routinely complained because the street is covered with coal-muck. The sign at the company entrance says, “Coal Mac, Inc.,” but officials with Mine Safety and Health Administration say the company is Apex Energy, Inc.

Below the roadway, the rocks lining a back slew of the river are discolored, darker than those lining the upper part of the river. The water in the back slew of the river is gray and foggy.

Randall Watts, a field supervisor for MSHA, said no reports of problems have come in recently at his office about the black water. Like other residents, Mullins, who worked on a strip job for 11 years, says complaining about the problem doesn't work.

Bobby Cecil Woolwine, whose lived on Ohio Street for about 30 years now, says the black water has been leaking into the river from the load out site for about 6 or 7 years now. He fishes in the river, but he doesn't eat fish caught below the company's coal tipple because he has seen the river run black “hundreds” of times.

“I speculate it washes off the stock piles during hard rains and comes down one side of the river just as black as it can be,” he said. “Everybody you can think of, I've called or contacted over the years to report it. I don't know what else to do about it.”

He says it happens every time the water level raises.

“I've given up on it myself,” he said. “I've been ignored. Other people are concerned with it now. They're asking a lot of questions. Why do they get away with it? Why can they continue to do it here? There've been all kinds of questions, but who's to say what the answers are.”

Blackwater, Watts said, is water that has “picked up coal fines or coal waste” and the coal waste is suspended in the water. Watts said black water comes from refuges, impoundments, or preparation plants.

“A lot of times on strip jobs, you'll get run off onto access roads,” Watts said. “A lot of dust from sandstone gravel causes more gray water, rather than black water.”

Violations, a “remedial measure” ordering the company to “cease the problem immediately,” are issued for gray water and black water problems, Watts said. The violations are based on the total amount of suspended solids in the water.

He also said the discolored rocks on the back slew of the river could have been caused by a black slime bacteria.

He is sending an inspector out to the site this week to “see what's what.”

Apex Energy, Inc., with James H. Booth as its current controller, has been issued numerous violations at the No. 3 mine in Regina, No. 2 mine in Feds Creek, No. 7 mine in Phelps, No. 4 mine in Phelps and No. 6 mine in Millard, according to MSHA.

One violation was issued at the No. 3 mine in April, 27 violations or orders were issued in 2003, ten were issued in 2004, and 14 were issued in 2005. There have been more than 30 violations since 2003.

This year, the company's No. 2 mine in Fedscreek was cited with 14 violations, tagged on to fines totaling more than $1,200. Those violations cited the mine for several machine maintenance problems, problems keeping “travelways” to and from the facility clear of debris, problems keeping cab windows clean and having adequate breaks on loading and haulage equipment, and problems inspecting equipment daily.

The company's No. 7 mine in Phelps was cited four times this year for equipment safety or maintenance issues. The company's No. 4 mine at Phelps was also cited this year for inspection of haulage equipment and the accumulation of combustible materials in an area that could pose as a fire hazard.

The company's No. 6 mine at Millard was also cited twice for equipment safety reasons this year.

Don Kitts, a representative of Apex Energy, Inc. said he wasn't aware of the problem Tuesday. He said he would look into it, but did not return calls to the Appalachian News-Express after doing so.