Thirty-eight years ago, 125 people died after a dam holding wet coal waste known as an impoundment broke in Logan County. The Buffalo Creek Disaster is a moment of West Virginia history that many would like to forget but for those who were alive at the time, the nightmare just won’t go away.
About three months before the dam broke at Buffalo Creek, Delbert Gunnoe was a truck driver working close by. He moved to Raleigh County for another job at a surface mine. Several of his friends and former co-workers perished in the flood, so he felt compelled to go back.
“There was just nothing left,” Gunnoe said. “I wish I had never went back and looked at what had happened. It’s just hard to live with something like that.”
The flood waters reached two elementary schools and Man High School was used as a morgue. Students at the time were bused to schools outside of the damaged area.
Gunnoe lives at Rock Creek about four miles from the Brushy Fork impoundment. The dam is close to Marsh Fork Elementary.
“In one regard if these two dams close to us, something would happen, the death and destruction they would do would be 10 to 15 times more than what Buffalo Creek done,” he said.
Things have changed since the Buffalo Creek Disaster. Slurry impoundments are highly regulated; still environmentalists want to go further.
House Bill 3279 would eliminate permit renewals on current impoundments and ban any new permits.
Stephanie Tyree with the Sludge Safety Project says as a lobbyist, it’s been tough just to get the attention of lawmakers.
“We’re fully aware that that it’s a challenging bill,” Tyree said.
“I wouldn’t actually say it’s an aggressive bill but it certainly would force the industry to make changes.”
Tyree hopes the bill would encourage dry disposal of mining waste. To do so, operators would have to take an extra step in the disposal process, which would cost more money. But this won’t happen unless the bill passes.
The bill has been in the Committee on Energy, Industry labor, and Economic Development and Small Business since January 13, with no movement.
The legislation would also ban underground slurry injections, where coal waste is injected into underground abandoned and sometimes active mines.
As environmentalists continue to push for movement on this bill at the capitol, people in Logan County and across the nation remember that cold February morning.
“It’s just something you can’t forget,” Gunnoe said.
“Acts of God is what the reasoning that causes all this, and it’s not an act of God.”