New Relaxed Coal Pollution Rules Let WV Gov Pay Piddling Fine, Enjoy Permanently Weakened Standards
A coal company owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice pledged to stop violating water pollution rules at a large strip-mining site in the state, according to a settlement filed Thursday in federal court with local and national environmental groups. By agreeing to come into compliance within a year, Justice’s Bluestone Coal Corp. will avoid the harshest financial penalties that could have been levied — the maximum potential federal fines were nearly $170 million.
The company agreed to pay $30,000 in new penalties, and the settlement document noted that it had already paid $414,500 in water pollution fines for violations at the same mine site, under the terms of a 2016 deal the Justice family’s coal operations made with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The new settlement, which needs court approval, resolves a suit filed by the Sierra Club and other groups in August 2019, alleging excess discharges of selenium, which can be toxic to fish and other aquatic life, at Bluestone’s Red Fox Mine in McDowell County. As part of the deal, Bluestone also will pay $270,000 to the West Virginia Land Trust, a conservation group. The money will be used to buy land for a newly proposed trail along the Tug Fork River in southern West Virginia, to provide local residents with new economic and recreational opportunities.
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In the case settled Thursday, Justice’s company benefited from the actions taken by the state Department of Environmental Protection, whose secretary he appointed. Though the state wasn’t a party to the lawsuit, the WVDEP just weeks before a potential trial agreed to a separate deal to allow Bluestone to pay $125,000 in penalties and also relaxed the selenium limits at three of the four outfalls involved in the case.
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https://mountainstatespotlight.org/2020/12/04/after-his-own-state-agency-relaxed-the-pollution-rules-w-va-gov-justices-company-promises-to-stop-breaking-them/
