By Jessica Nelson and Jeniffer Graham
Read Part 1 of the series HERE.
Well water contaminated by seepage from a closed underground coal mine in Newburg is unusable and four homeowners have waited a year for a mandated solution.
After numerous complaints, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection launched an investigation into the source of the contamination and the seepage and determined the water problems were caused by mining operations at the closed Whitetail Kittanning Mine, owned by Lexington Coal Co.
Whitetail — an underground mine outside Newburg — was closed in early 2009 and has been filling with water since.
Orange, oily, odorous
Scott Rankin, of Fellowsville, was the first to file a complaint with the State Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Mining and Reclamation about water springing up on his property.
The complaint, filed March 29, 2019, states water came up from underground and pooled in Rankin’s yard. His house and yard suffered subsidence damage, which happens when the ground sinks after underground materials are removed. Subsidence can compromise a structure’s foundation, leading to cracks in the walls and possibly to structural instability, according to Integrity Network Insurance Group LLC.
Brenda and Roger Simons, of Possum Hollow Road outside Newburg, filed a complaint on April 23, 2019, after their well — which provides their drinking water — became contaminated beyond use.
“It ruined our well, our bathroom. It smells like rotten eggs,” Brenda Simons said.
Three days later, another resident of the area around the B&O Dam — also called Newburg dam — on Little Raccoon Creek filed a complaint. Bruce Wilt reported the well that provides his drinking water became filled with black material. He said he used a water filter but it clogged up quickly. Wilt also expressed concern the water was causing a family member’s skin irritation.
On April 29, 2019, Theresa Bender and Gary Bell — who also live near the dam — both filed complaints when their drinking wells became contaminated.
“When (DEP inspectors) took the cover off of my well, the water was bright orange with oily residue,” Bender said. “It stained the sinks and the toilet. I let the water drip one night because it was cold. Every place it hit was orange.”
Bell said water problems around Newburg started sometime in 2017.
“When they checked my well, the water was orange. It had oil and coal in it. It smelled like rotten eggs,” he said.
Bell also noted in his complaint that he was concerned the polluted water could be the cause of a stomach problem.
Bell’s sister, Patricia Bell Cline, lives with him. “It ruined the washer, the shower, the commode; it was nasty,” she said. “The water turned the clothes orange and smelled like rotten eggs. It had coal in it.”
WVDEP investigates
DEP geologist J. Bonner, one of the investigators, visited Rankin’s property to examine the water pooled in the yard. Bonner’s report indicated obvious artesianing came from the well on Rankin’s property. In other words, underground pressure had caused water to rise to the ground’s surface without any kind of pumping.
Bonner also said orange seepage was detected along the banks of Little Sandy Creek, near the Fellowsville School Road bridge.
About two years before the first complaints of contaminated water, documented comments from the DEP, dated Sept. 19, 2017, indicated water levels in the Whitetail K-mine (Kittanning seam) had nearly reached “breakout” levels and a new monitoring well might need to be made in a low-elevation section of the mine to ensure water levels didn’t become dangerous. A responding comment dated Feb. 19, 2019, acknowledged the water levels in the K-mine had been increasing since August 2017, but there were no plans for additional monitoring following a Sept. 26, 2017, conversation with the DEP. No documents are available from that particular meeting.
A little more than a month after Lexington Coal Co. indicated further monitoring wasn’t needed, Rankin filed his complaint. Then the Simonses, Wilt, Bender, Bell and Cline filed theirs.
Once the residents’ water problems were linked to the Whitetail mine, the DEP ordered Lexington to provide an emergency drinking water supply within 24 hours, provide a temporary water supply within 72 hours and, within 30 days, begin activities to establish a permanent water supply or submit a proposal to the secretary outlining the measures and timetables to be used in establishing a permanent supply, according to a DEP Complaint Investigation Report.
Lexington complied with the first two mandates. With Lexington footing the bill, Dean’s Water Service Inc., based out of Washington, Pa., began trucking in water within 72 hours of the DEP’s order being issued. That process continues, but Dean’s Water Service declined to give information about how many trips it has made to Newburg to deliver water and how much services cost.
As David Boggs, a spokesman for Lexington, said at the time, the company’s first priority was to take care of the community. When contacted, Lexington Coal did not reply with additional comments in time for this article.
Save the Tygart chemist Paul Baker said the well water is unusable, even for washing, because it could destroy equipment. The water can’t be consumed, Baker said, because it’s uncertain where the contaminated water is coming from inside the mine.
“In this case,” Baker said, “there could be a bacterial contamination if some sort of sewage from septic systems gets into the mine water. That would create a situation where you would have a high fecal coliform bacterial count and that could cause illness.”
One problem solved, four to go
In fall 2019, attention shifted to the threat of a blowout, which could release hundreds of thousands of gallons of mine water, potentially destroying homes and roads. An emergency borehole was drilled on the low end of the Whitetail K-mine to release some of the water pressure before a blowout could occur. Once water levels decreased in the mine, the seeps along the creeks and the artesian well in Rankin’s yard dried up. The borehole, however, did nothing to fix the ruined wells.
Less than a month ago, on April 24, the WVDEP sent a letter to Lexington Coal Co. as a reminder it was overdue on fulfilling its legal obligations.
The letter acknowledges Lexington completed two of the three orders, but homeowners were still waiting for a permanent water supply. It said Lexington representative Joe Crane talked about but did not satisfy that final order and no formal documentation on how the permanent water supply would be handled has been submitted.
The letter also says, on April 2, Lexington tried to tell the WVDEP it was not responsible for the contamination, but the DEP disagreed. The evidence Lexington submitted to prove Whitetail operations didn’t damage the wells was not available for The Dominion Post to review.
The letter concludes: “Lexington is hereby ordered to, within 30 days, begin activities to establish a permanent water supply or submit a proposal to the Secretary outlining the measure and timetable to be utilized in establishing a permanent supply of water to the citizens of Newburg.”
Baker said he believes the only reasonable solution for a permanent water supply would be to run a line from the Newburg public water service to the affected households.
“That should have already been happening,” Baker said.
The Dominion Post reached out to Newburg Water Works regarding a water line to the affected homes and was redirected to Newburg’s mayor, Edgar Fortney.
Fortney said it would be up to Lexington to plan, execute and pay for a water line if Lexington chose that route for a permanent solution. Fortney didn’t know what such a project would cost.
“The city has never run a small line like that. We’ve only done major projects,” Fortney said. He said costs vary, especially if the project runs into obstacles like large rocks in the pipeline’s path.
He expected Lexington would hire an engineer to oversee the construction — like the town would — but he didn’t think Newburg would have anything to do with the line until it was finished. At that point, it would be turned over to the city.
As of mid-April, Malissa Simons — daughter of Brenda and Roger Simons — said her parents still had not received information about a permanent solution. Nearly a year to the day they had filed their complaint, the Simonses still had water trucked in by Dean’s. And, Malissa said, her parents still bought bottled water to drink.
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This is the second in a four-part series looking at the issues caused by water coming from an underground coal mine in Preston County.
Next: Experts explain how the contaminated water affects people and the environment.
