{"id":1397,"date":"2014-03-06T10:22:31","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T18:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=1397"},"modified":"2014-03-11T14:08:20","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T21:08:20","slug":"coal-companies-pay-record-clean-water-act-fine-agree-200-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=1397","title":{"rendered":"Coal Companies Pay Record Clean Water Act Fine, Agree to $200 Million in Improvements"},"content":{"rendered":"

VIRGINIA<\/strong> —\u00a0One of the nation’s largest coal companies agreed to spend about $200 million to install and operate a waste water treatment systems and upgrade its operation to reduce discharges from coal mines in five states, according to federal authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alpha Natural Resources, Inc, \u00a0Alpha Appalachian Holdings\u00a0 and its subsidiaries own coal mines in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, according to EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, which made the announcement on Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The companies will also pay a penalty of $27.5 million – the largest in the history of the Clean Water Act \u00a0– for thousands of permit violations, according to the U.S. Justice Department.<\/p>\n

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Overall, the settlement covers about 79 active mines and 25 processing plants, officials said.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

EPA estimates that the upgrades and advanced treatment required by the settlement will reduce discharges of total dissolved solids by over 36 million pounds each year, and will cut metals and other pollutants by approximately nine million pounds per year.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe unprecedented size of the civil penalty in this settlement sends a strong deterrent message to others in this industry that such egregious violations of the nation’s Clean Water Act will not be tolerated,\u201d said Robert G. Dreher, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department\u2019s Environment and Natural Resources Division on Wednesday. \u00a0\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

Gene Kitts, Bristol, Virginia-based Alpha\u2019s senior vice president of environmental affairs, told <\/span>Bloomberg News <\/a>the company had a combined total water quality compliance rate of 99.8 percent last year.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis settlement will provide a consistent structure to our efforts to become even better in preventing incidents and in responding quickly to situations where permit limits are exceeded,\u201d he told<\/p>\n

Companies Had More Than 6,000 Violations of Permits<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The government lawsuit alleged that, between 2006 and 2013, Alpha and its subsidiaries routinely violated limits in 336 of its state-issued permits.\u00a0<\/span>This resulted in hundreds of rivers and streams in the five states being polluted, the EPA said.<\/p>\n

The violations also included discharge of pollutants without a permit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are other \u00a0EPA findings:<\/span><\/p>\n