The state Department of Environmental Protection was supposed to answer that question two years ago.
They missed that deadline, and now, agency officials are telling lawmakers they cannot determine whether the practice is safe.
Coal slurry is the toxic wastewater that’s left behind when coal is processed. Sometimes it’s disposed of in containment ponds, but sometimes the slurry is injected into abandoned underground mines.
Slurry injection has come under fire lately, as residents in towns in Mingo and Boone counties say the slurry has leaked out of the mines and contaminated their drinking water.
On Wednesday, DEP chief Randy Huffman presented the first phase of its study on coal slurry to lawmakers.
But he didn’t have many results to report. One problem is a lack of data about the conditions of the surface and ground water before injections began.
“First of all, we discovered there were insufficient surface and groundwater monitoring points, insufficient data to make conclusive determinations about coal slurry’s effect on surface and groundwater,” he said.
The DEP’s report was originally due in 2007. In an interim committee meeting this past February, Huffman was chastised by lawmakers, who demanded the quick completion of the study.
This time around, Delegate Don Perdue says he was pleased to see results, but thinks that the study still has a long way to go before it’s complete.
“Coal slurry injection is something that we really have ignored and it could be dangerous to the population,” he said. “By virtue of just saying they’re going to put a moratorium on the new ones, I think that’s an indication that there’s great concern on behalf of DEP.”
Committee chairman Tim Manchin says he has more questions of DEP as well.
“Our concern is simply that we try and get to the bottom of it and find out whether there is contamination of public water supplies or groundwater, of wells, and whether it could be affecting the public health,” he said.”
In his presentation, Huffman outlined a number of his agency’s failures. During sampling, the DEP discovered numerous permit violations they had previously failed to address. And Huffman admitted that the program lacks resources.
“These findings, they tell us a lot but they also leave us with many questions, and I know that it leaves a lot of folks with frustration,” he said. “But they also leave us acknowledging that our regulatory program for UIC in DEP needs some works, it needs some attention and we intend to do that.”
Members of the Sludge Safety Project say they’re not satisfied the DEP is doing enough.
The project consists of several local environmental groups. Organizer Matthew Rosenberg says the DEP’s study fails to meet any of the legislature’s requirements.
“In, say, a civil lawsuit they talk about the balance of harms,” he said. “Mistakenly banning it has a minimal impact to anyone and mistakenly not banning has the potential to kill people. So I don’t really understand what the argument is for continuing the practice”
The report contains 14 recommendations for further monitoring of injection sites by the Department of Environmental Protection.
Currently, there are 13 slurry injection sites in the state, and the report recommends a moratorium on all new permits.
It also places more stringent monitoring requirements into place, and requires coal companies to drill wells to monitor the injection sites.
The second part of the study will be conducted by the Department of Health and Human Resources. That agency is charged with determining whether injection has a potential impact on human health.
DHHR has outsourced their portion to scientists at West Virginia University, at a cost of more than $221,000.