Federal Judge Rules Against West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection on West Virginia Coal Mine Clean-up Case
Coal Tattoo:
A second federal judge has ordered the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to clean up the way it cleans up abandoned coal mine pollution.U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. yesterday ruled that WVDEP must obtain permits for the abandoned mine sites it maintains under the agency’s Special Reclamation program.
Essentially — and very importantly — this means that WVDEP is going to have to set pollution limits for these sites, and improve the treatment being used so that discharges from abandoned mine sites meet the state’s water pollution limits.
