State mining regulators labeled the dump an "imminent danger area" after the flood and spent $640,000 in federal money to clean it up. Whitaker hoped the problems were in the past. "They weren't supposed to bother this slate dump anymore," says Whitaker, now 72.
Two years ago, however, a logger hired by Pittston started cutting alongside the dump. The logger sliced a road across the reclaimed area. State forestry officials said the logger caused erosion and polluted the creek by cutting trails up steep slopes around the dump.
For Whitaker, the episode was another example of how Pittston values profits over protecting the environment and people.
"They're greedy," she says. "That's all you can say — greedy over the mighty dollar."\
Pittston Coal's record for protecting the environment, its neighbors and its workers has been a subject of debate for decades in Appalachia's coalfields.
The company has taken heat for destroying wells and springs and damaging homes with underground mines that cause the surface to drop and buckle. Over the years, the United Mine Workers union has blasted the company's safety record. Its reputation took its hardest blow in 1972, when one of its coal-refuse dams in West Virginia burst, killing 125 people in the worst mining disaster in America in 70 years.
This year, Pittston's construction of a wood-processing mill in Southwest Virginia has prompted a new debate about the way the company cares for the region's land and water.
Pittston officials say they have a good record. They maintain that they follow all environmental and safety laws in their mining and timber operations. Any serious pollution, they add, happened before there were laws to police the mining industry.
Virginia mining regulators say the company has done an acceptable job of following the rules in recent years.
"We are very conscious of our environmental reputation," says John Kegley, Pittston's manager of surface mines in Virginia. "We know what years past have created. We know the laws."
‘I can't take their word’
Some people remain skeptical.
"Having seen what they have done in the past, I can't just take their word for it," says Gerald Gray, a lawyer in Dickenson County who has helped organize protests over Pittston's logging practices. "The citizens of Dickinson County have suffered plenty of environmental damage at the hands of Pittston. Their record speaks for itself."
Since 1990, Virginia's mining regulators have cited Pittston and its subsidiaries for 862 violations of environmental laws — 22 percent of all mining violations in the state during that time, an analysis of records at the state Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy shows.
More than 200 citations were for not having proper erosion-control structures, such as holding ponds that collect solids from mine waste water before it is released into nearby streams. The agency cited the company for 115 violations involving "high effluent" discharges of iron and other substances into streams and rivers.
Pittston officials blame many of the violations on record-keeping problems. "It's not uncommon for a company of this size to have 50 to 100 paperwork violations," says Walter Crickmer, a Pittston vice president.
State mining officials agree.
"Pittston is a large company with numerous operations in the state," says Mike Abbott, a spokesman for the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. "Statistics don’t show the true extent of the problem. For example, violations could be for the company not putting up the proper sign on its property, as opposed to something where you have an environmental impact.
"They follow the laws," Abbott says. " And, when they don't, we'll enforce it."
Some people in the coalfields have complained that the state has taken a less-than-aggressive approach to policing Pittston's operations.
Hank French, a resident of Dickenson County, claims that was the case after his house and well were damaged by a Pittston subsidiary in 1986.
"I called them up and said, ‘You destroyed my well and cracked my house,’ ” French says. "They denied responsibility. Their response was, ‘We're not mining under your house; it's not us.’ ”
State regulators said Pittston's mining hadn't violated any laws. French sued and fought a long legal battle with the company before reaching an undisclosed settlement.
"It took me 12 years before I got anything from them," French says.
Ernie Barker, reclamation manager for the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, says federal and state law assumes that damage to wells and springs are a natural outcome of mining. Coal seams act as aquifers, and, when they are interrupted, the water can drain elsewhere and nearby wells and springs dry up. Since 1982, state mining regulators have fielded 172 water-loss complaints against Pittston. They ruled the company was to blame in 53 of them.
In many instances, however, the agency didn't have the authority to do anything. Until 1992, the law generally didn't hold coal companies financially responsible for water losses caused by underground mines.
Disaster at Buffalo Creek
Pittston's environmental record first came under national scrutiny in February 1972. A refuse dam built by a subsidiary in Logan County, W.Va., broke and sent waves of water and coal sludge crashing down on 17 communities in the narrow valley below. In addition to the 125 who died, 4,000 people lost their homes. In June 1974, Pittston settled with the survivors for $13.5 million.
The Buffalo Creek disaster left a lasting impression on people in Appalachia's coalfields. And it wouldn't be the end of Pittston's troubles.
In 1980, a federal grand jury in Roanoke indicted a subsidiary, Clinchfield Coal, and 11 Clinchfield managers in what prosecutors called the largest criminal case ever brought against a coal company. The indictments charged the company with falsifying dust samples, forging miners' signatures on dust-sample documents and issuing training certificates to miners who had never received the training.
Company officials denied the allegations but reached a plea agreement with the government: The corporation pleaded guilty and paid a $100,000 fine, and prosecutors dropped charges against individual employees.
In 1990, the federal Office of Surface Mining accused Pittston of using subcontractors to mine coal for them, then refusing to accept responsibility for any environmental damage caused by these contractors.
"The company did not acknowledge that it had a relationship with these contractors," says Walt Morris, a Charlottesville lawyer whose lawsuit against Pittston helped prod the government to take action against the company.
"They would have them mine the coal, but not give these companies enough to clean up the environmental damage. The companies would go bankrupt or shut down, and Pittston would move on to other contractors, leaving the damage behind."
Pittston fought the allegations. The battle ended in 1996 when Pittston agreed to a $5 million settlement, including $100,000 to help stop acid mine drainage.
The company also drew a regulatory rebuke in a 1990 case in Wise County. A subsidiary, Paramont Coal, used more than 300 pounds of ammonia to reduce the level of iron discharges from a mine sediment pond. But the ammonia leaked into the Powell River and, according to a state investigation, killed at least 100 rock bass, bluegill and other fish.
Pittston said there was no proof it had caused the fish kill.
This prompted a stinging letter from the Virginia Attorney General's office: "No attempt to explain the fish kill has been made except to say ‘We didn't do it.’ Paramont's attitude is painfully reminiscent of coal operators who believed that the fact that they owned the coal justified operating with total disregard to the consequences of their actions."
The company paid a $5,000 penalty.
Timber battle
Today, Pittston officials say those sorts of regulatory problems are history. They say their operations are among the safest in the country for workers and the environment.
Federal mine records show that Pittston's workers suffered more total injuries than any other company in Virginia in 1998, but its injury rate — 8.2 injuries per million hours worked — was one of the lowest in Virginia's coal industry. However, while Pittston's injury rate was better than most smaller companies' rates, it still ranked highest among the state's biggest coal producers.
The company has won environmental and safety awards in recent years.
A Pittston strip mine in Russell County won an award in 1997 from the Office of Surface Mining for having the greatest number of employee work-hours without a serious injury. The company's strip mines also have won state and national awards for environmental cleanup, including recognition this year from the Office of Surface Mining for its work on a 600-acre tract in Dickinson County.
Paramont, a Pittston subsidiary, cleaned up old strip-mining damage when it returned to the site to mine more coal. The federal agency said the operation "changed the area from a barren wasteland into an aesthetically pleasing landscape with productive hay and pasture land."
Pittston's latest environmental controversy involves the chip mill it opened this summer in Dickenson County. Some coalfield residents fear the wood-processing operation will promote clear-cutting that will cause erosion into Flannagan Lake, a key source of drinking water for the county and its neighbors.
Since 1993, the Virginia Department of Forestry has cited at least a dozen Pittston logging sites for water violations, mostly for having improper hauling trails and roads near streams.
Crickmer, the Pittston executive, says the critics' fears are groundless.
"We're not going to lay waste to the Flannagan Lake watershed or anything else," Crickmer says. "We're going in, working hard, doing a good job of timbering."
Crickmer says all Pittston loggers are "master loggers," and many company logging jobs have gone years without a violation.
"We have eight different companies out there working for us," he says. "Environmentalists are pointing out these 10 or whatever violations and calling that a big deal. I'd say that's a pretty good environmental record for that many companies."
If the state lets the company know about problems, Crickmer says, the company makes sure they are corrected immediately.
That wasn't the case, however, with Pittston's logging site at Straight Hollow in Russell County.
In the fall of 1997, Lucille Whitaker began seeing logging trucks going past her house. Worried that the logging was going to disturb Pittston's reclaimed slate dump above her home, she called Del. Clarence "Bud" Phillips, D-Dickenson County. Phillips complained to state mining regulators, and, soon afterward, the Department of Forestry checked the site.
State foresters warned Pittston and its logger, Audie Kiser, to stop dragging timber across the slag pile. Kiser complied, but within two months, the agency found other problems. It cited the logger for four water-quality violations, including dragging logs through a stream. State records show that the pollution into the creek continued through four more inspections over the next three months.
By late 1998, the agency found that the erosion had ended, but Kiser still hadn't built satisfactory drainage structures to head off future problems.
Kiser maintains that he did good work on the logging job. He says he was cited for problems before he had a chance to finish his work: "You've got to finish before you can reclaim it. You've got to get it done before you can plant grass."
Phillips says loggers and timber owners are supposed to protect the water from the time they start cutting. He's concerned by water violations that have accumulated at Pittston-owned logging sites. It's a sign, he argues, that the company still falls short when it comes to protecting its neighbors and the environment.
"It's easy for them to tell me that they have changed," Phillips says. "But to show me is something else." |
