US coal company hit with $27.5M fine

Alpha Natural Resources Inc., one of the largest coal producers in the United States, will pay a $27.5 million fine and spend $200 million to reduce illegal toxic discharges into hundreds of waterways across five Appalachian states, according to a proposed settlement reached Wednesday.

The fine is the largest ever levied against a single company for violations of water pollution permits, many of which were self-reported by Alpha to state environmental officials. The discharges occurred at mines and coal-processing plants in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

"This is the largest one, period," Cynthia Giles, head of the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement office, told The Associated Press. "It's the biggest case for permit violations, for numbers of violations, and size of the penalty, which reflects the seriousness of violations."

But environmental groups say the multi-billion dollar coal company can absorb the costs.

“U.S. Dept. of Justice and others are trying to spin this into a great deal for people and water protection. It is not,” said Dianne Bady, founder of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.

“These problems continue and the government's solution is the same: fines and a plan to make individual mines better — which didn't stop the problems last time,” she said. “Considering that Alpha is a four billion dollar company, this fine is just another acceptable cost of doing business.”

The government says that between 2006 and 2013, Alpha and dozens of its subsidiaries violated water pollution limits in state-issued permits more than 6,000 times.

They discharged heavy metals and other contaminants harmful to fish and other wildlife from nearly 800 pipes directly into rivers, streams and tributaries, according to the government.

There is no evidence that any of the violations contaminated drinking water, EPA officials said, but monitoring records attached to the complaint show that in some cases, the releases exceeded permit limits by as much as 35 times.

Under the settlement agreement, the coal-mine operators will install wastewater treatment systems and take other measures aimed at reducing discharges from 79 active coal mines and 25 coal-processing plants in the five states affected.

Bristol, Va.-based Alpha, the nation's third largest coal supplier, estimates those steps will cost about $200 million.

Gene Kitts, Alpha's vice president for environmental affairs, said the company, which has 700 state water permits and 5,000 different discharge points, is in compliance with the Clean Water Act 99.8 percent of the time.

"That's a strong record of compliance," Kitts said in a statement.

"But our goal is to do even better, and the consent decree provides an opportunity to proactively focus on improving the less than 1 percent of the time that permits are exceeded."

Half of the $27.5 million fine will go to the federal government; the other half will be divided among West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky.

Kitts said in an interview with The Associated Press that the states lack resources to keep tabs on the violations the companies report and to follow up.

"That system has not worked very well," Kitts said. "The states get the reports, the question is what happens at that point."

Still, advocacy groups say state and federal authorities need to do more to prevent pollution from occurring in the first place.

"Levying fines after the fact does nothing for the communities and waterways already harmed," said Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club's coal campaign.

W. Va. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said his state’s share of the fine — $8.9 million — will be spent on stricter enforcement of the laws at the state level.

"We still appreciate coal mining jobs and the investments here in West Virginia, but they've got to be responsible," Tomblin said.

The settlement comes nearly two months after the water supply for 300,000 people in and around Charleston, W. Va., was temporarily undrinkable after the spill of a coal-processing chemical on the banks of the Elk River.

Even though officials have given an all-clear for residents to drink the water, many remain wary, and angry at regulators for what they see as contradictory statements about the safety of their taps.

In February, a ruptured pipe underneath a coal ash impoundment at a Duke Energy power plant polluted the waters of the Dan River in North Carolina. State environmental officials in that case cited Duke for not obtaining the proper permits for discharges into waterways.

The settlement with Alpha covers a different source of water pollution from coal — from mines and processing plants where the natural resource is prepared for shipping.

Some of the mines, activists say, are mountaintop removal mines, where mining companies strip off the tops of hills and mountains, trees and all, to get at the coal beneath.

Vernon Haltom, executive director of Coal River Mountain Watch, faulted West Virginia state regulators for failing to stop pollution, saying the water contamination Alpha was fined for happened for the same reason that caused coal processing chemical spill.  

“We've recently experienced the devastation of 300,000 residents' water supply as a result of DEP's failure to take action," Haltom said.

"Unfortunately, regulators will continue to grant permits to coal companies that are in violation of their existing permits. Clearly, mountaintop removal operations cannot comply with the law, and this practice needs to end now."

Still, for the Obama administration, the settlement is likely to generate more criticism from the coal industry, their lobbyists and supporters in Congress.

They’ve accused his administration of going after coal with new regulations aimed at reducing mercury and other toxic air pollutants from power plant smokestacks, as well as the first-ever proposal to reduce carbon from yet-to-be-built coal-fired power plants.

But when it comes to water and coal, the administration has mostly played catch-up.

The EPA says coal mining and the burning of coal for electricity are some of the largest sources of water pollution in the country. But the agency has struggled to get a hold on the problem.

Efforts by the EPA to address pollution from mountaintop coal mines have been vacated by a federal court. That decision is under appeal.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press. Wilson Dizard contributed to this report.