Frasure Creek Mining has applied for a significant revision to its Open Fork No. 2 surface mine permit in Fayette County. If approved, it would allow the company to truck in refuse from their nearby coal preparation plant and bury it in pits created by surface mine operations.

Advertised two weeks ago, the revision application comes as citizens await a decision by the state Surface Mine Board on their appeal of the original Open Fork No. 2 permit. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) confirms the decision is likely days away from release.

WVDEP spokesperson Tom Aluise says the revision would not come into play in the board’s appeal decision.

The permit revision states that “through an oversight,” refuse disposal was not included in the original permit, nor in the public advertisement.

The revision adds refuse disposal and highwall mining to the permit. It also revises the permit to reflect that there are groundwater users within a half mile of the area; adds three new during mining groundwater monitoring sites; and adds selenium as a monitoring parameter for groundwater.

Jack Spadaro, a mine health and safety and environmental consultant who served as a witness for citizens of Fayette County in the permit appeal, voiced concerns about how the placement of refuse material might change the potential for water quality issues on the permit.

Open Fork No. 2 overlaps the Source Water Protection Area for the Page-Kincaid PSD, which supplies approximately 2,000 people with drinking water.

“That’s something to be concerned about because, as we know from our work with the situation in Rawl in southern West Virginia, there are lots of heavy metals in coal refuse that can be leached into the groundwater system and even to surface water systems,” says Spadaro.

“If they haven’t put any provisions in for isolating or treating that material or controlling the subsurface drainage, then that is a major change in the permit and really should require a completely new permitting process and hearing and so forth.”

Coal refuse is the waste material produced by cleaning and processing coal.

Tina White, a permit review geologist with the WVDEP, says placement of the refuse should not affect water quality issues.

“The refuse will be encapsulated in the backstack areas on bench,” she writes.

“It will basically be placed high and dry on non-toxic material at least 25 feet above the pavement and 25 feet away from the highwall. It will be covered with an alkaline material. “It will also not be placed in any waterways or near any seeps or springs. In this area, the mining is oriented down-dip, so there won’t be any gravity discharge flowing through the backstack areas. Water that does flow through these areas due to precipitation should flow along the highwall and the pavement of the backstack areas. This means that flow will be behind and beneath the encapsulated materials, not through them.”

White also says that “at least 540 feet of sandstones, shales, and coal seams” separate the refuse material and the source aquifer for the Page-Kincaid PSD’s well.

“There is no direct hydrologic connection between the aquifer and the mining operation,” she says.

Spadaro, though, thinks the revision is significant enough to warrant more scrutiny, and sees it as an effort by Frasure Creek to evade that scrutiny.

“What they’re trying to do is piggy-back on the permit,” he says. "They would have had to get a separate permit for a coal refuse area, a separate Clean Water Act permit.

“The DEP is aiding and abetting the company in circumventing the Surface Mine Control and Reclamation Act and the Clean Water Act by allowing the company to do this.”

White says the proposed refuse disposal is “not unusual” and has been conducted on adjacent permits for several years.

“Encapsulation is an accepted method for materials handling,” she says.