Massive diesel spill fouls Tug RiverBY LEIGH ANN WELLS

HATFIELD - Officials are investigating a diesel spill that could have happened several hours before it was reported and that contaminated drinking water supplies and killed wildlife along the Tug River.

At press time, authorities were still at the ICG East Kentucky surface mine site located in Martin County just across the Pike/Martin line at Hatfield. According to Hatfield Volunteer Fire Department Chief Lawrence Dingess, fire department members were dispatched to the bridge that spans Big Creek between the two counties at approximately 1:30 p.m., after the Pike County Emergency Management Services Office received a report of a diesel spill in the area.

HVFD member Kenneth May said members of the department traveled state routes 292 and 468 to see if the spill had occurred at any of the several mines located in the area.

“We thought we may have had a truck in the creek that had turned over,” May said.

As the firefighters headed down Big Creek toward the Martin County line, they noticed what appeared to be diesel near the ICG operation.

Firefighters deployed buoys in the water to stop the fuel from entering the Tug River, but it was too late. May said that people in Martin County reportedly complained about contaminated water coming through their faucets and the water plant in Kermit, W.Va., had turned off its intake system.

May added that officials had dammed the water as far as six miles down the river from the ICG location, but the spill could have occurred as much as 16 hours earlier, so officials were estimating that the fuel had possibly traveled as far as Louisa.

Dingess said that as firefighters walked Big Creek in search of the spill, they noticed dead fish and crawdads. A woman stopped on the bridge and reported a mother deer and two fawns having what appeared to be diesel fuel in their fur.

Investigators were expected to be at the scene for an extended amount of time.