Two Mingo County surface mines—in Rawl and Thacker—will face penalties for the damage their operations caused to homeowners.
On the bank of the creek behind Rev. Larry Brown’s house, it looks like a construction site. Machines push around mud and dirt and slate, left over from last week’s flood, but the machines are all operated by miners. The DEP determined that Rawl Sales and Processing, the mine right behind Brown’s house, was responsible for the damage.
Larry Brown stands in the basement of his church, right next to his house. Earlier this month, the water came up over the banks of the creek, straight into his house and the church basement.
Ten days later, the water is gone but the floor is still damp. There’s dried mud covering the floor, and everywhere the distinct dank smell of a flood pervades.
“I believe it was up to where that place is,” he said, pointing. “The black mud water, and it came under the door, seeped under the door and just ran the water in here.”
Brown blames the flood on the surface mine right behind his house.
More than perhaps anywhere else, the people of Rawl know the hazards of living within stone’s throw of a mine. For years they have watched their drinking water and streams turn brown, yellow, and coal black.
For years, Brown and many others have been trying to make the mine, a Massey subsidiary, take responsibility for contaminating their water. They say coal slurry, the toxic liquid that’s left over after the coal is washed, polluted their water supply and caused health problems.
After years of that fight, Brown didn’t expect the coal company to take responsibility for the flood damage.
“When they said that they was responsible, I was shocked,” he said. “I was literally shocked to see that they was going to admit to it and they was going to fix it.”
Brown says he received a personal apology from mine officials, and a verbal agreement that Massey would replace everything damaged by the flood.
For the past few days, miners in coveralls with reflective taping have been clearing the bank by his home and cleaning up the mud.
They’ve been doing a great job, Brown says, but he says one thing he lost can’t be replaced: his peace of mind.
“Probably we’ll never be the same when it rains,” he said. “Is this going to happen again? Is it going to reoccur when there comes another big storm? And we don’t know.”
Harold Ward, an inspections and enforcement officer with the DEP stopped by to check on the progress of the cleanup.
“Our remedial measures prescribed the clean up,” Ward said. “So anything we determined was affected by the mining operation it’s part of the violation, so the stream clean up and anything associated with that.”
Ward says the DEP determined that drainage pipes at the mine clogged, overflowed and washed out part of the valley fill. Brown says machinery came down the hill too. Right now, Massey is being fined $750 a day until they fix the problem.
Brown says he appreciates the help that Massey has been providing, but it hasn’t changed his determination to participate in his community’s litigation against the company. He says above all, he wants the valley fill repaired correctly so the same thing doesn’t happen in the future.
“I feel a little bit better now since they’re trying to get some of this stuff done but I’m telling you right now, I’m watching it like a hawk because I want it done right,” he said.
“I want it done right, cause you know, everything I got here is at stake, maybe our lives too. It’s like I told these guys here. Personally I can’t hold it against nobody. But the CEO is responsible”
Studies have shown that surface mining and timbering can, and probably do, contribute to flooding.
Besides the operations in Rawl and Thacker, the DEP has not cited any other coal mine for contributing to flooding in southern West Virginia.