Reynolds said that Dunkard should be "OFF LIMITS" for gas companies looking to withdraw millions of gallons used to frack Marcellus wells.
Two weeks after the consent decree was announced, President Obama announced a "Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future" that called for expanding domestic production of natural gas, in addition to renewable fuel and nuclear.
Officially, Consol says it did not cause the fish kill, despite paying millions of dollars in fines and agreeing to build the treatment plant. And EPA says it never assigned blame.
"Our position has always been that our discharges did not cause the golden algae to release toxins into Dunkard Creek," Consol spokeswoman Lynn Seay said in an emailed statement. "We did not admit liability or any of the factual or legal allegations in the consent decrees that resolved [West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, West Virginia Department of Natural Resources and EPA] claims. According to national experts, there are many factors that could have caused the golden algae to release toxins."
EPA spokesman David Sternberg said the agency has not alleged that mine drainage is the sole cause of the fish kill. He pointed to a previous statement from EPA that said, "The complaint in this matter alleges that discharges of high amounts of chloride and TDS from Consol's Blacksville 2 and Loveridge mining operations in the Monongahela River Basin contributed to severe impairment of aquatic life and conditions favorable for golden algae to thrive in Dunkard Creek."
Reached by phone, Reynolds referred questions to Sternberg.
'What a mess!'
Dunkard Creek drifts back and forth across the West Virginia-Pennsylvania line before it flows into the Monongahela River. Until the 2009 fish kill, the creek was one of the most ecologically diverse waterways in the region, supporting freshwater mussels, mudpuppy salamanders and a wide spectrum of fish species from minnows to 3-foot-long muskies.
Blacksville, about 65 miles south of Pittsburgh, is cut in half by the creek, and also by the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border. The town's cemetery is in the Keystone State. Lined with sycamore trees, the warm, slow waters of the creek have been a popular place for locals to swim in and cast a line in hopes of landing bass.
After the fish kill started in early September 2009, one scientist reported that salamanders that live underwater were seen climbing up on the shore to escape the polluted water. Other fish swam into tributaries to find clean water, "stacking up" at the mouths as they tried to avoid the creek.
But some of the starkest observations came from Reynolds.
"What a mess!" he wrote to colleagues. "Up to our knees in rotting fish, mussels, and mudpuppys is no fun -- it's criminal. Dead mudpuppys look like sock puppets floating in the stream. Mussels die, the meat rots off the shell, then bloats and floats down the stream like a hellish jelly fish. The stench of rotting fish takes a day or more to work out of your scent memory."
Suspicion immediately focused on Marcellus gas drilling, which has boomed in recent years in southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia. Coal mines have been draining into Dunkard for years without a fish kill like the one in September 2009.
Marcellus Shale drilling creates millions of gallons of salty wastewater, called "brine." Drillers blast several million gallons of chemical-laced water downhole. The water comes back up, mixed with salts and other substances more toxic than the chemicals in the original fluid. The resulting mixture, called "flowback" must be disposed of.
What scientists could say definitively about the fish kill is that a swift increase in "total dissolved solids," or TDS, played a role, creating the conditions for a bloom of the toxic algae. What they couldn't tell is exactly what caused the increase. TDS can be caused by both coal mine drainage and waste brine from Marcellus Shale gas drilling operations.
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6 Comments
Add Comment"The allegations against Shipman, laid out in a grand jury presentment, say he improperly disposed of brine in tributaries of Dunkard Creek. But the specifics of the charges do not include anything that occurred upstream of the fish kill."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter three pages of may's, and maybe's, the last paragraph negates the entire previous majority of the article, (salt water is deadly to fresh water fish) and the coal mine ends up being extorted by the EPA, rather than fight. End result is, we, the customers, will get the bill.
If advocating alarmism has become necessary to stifle the compromise of our fundamental life support systems...then U.S. energy independence is secondary to ecological protection. We have our Sun and we have a multitude of great minds ready to apply sustainable technologies that will free all nations from any dependence on any other nation. This is where we must go. We will survive without the use of antiquated fuels...yet we will not survive without intact ecosystems and the water contained therein.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree completely. Salt water from fracking is deadly to fish so I don't see how the mines could be the issue unless the frackers were sending the flowback to the mine retaining pools and the mines released it into the stream.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems that some of those commenting (and some people at EPA) are really unfamiliar with coal mining, gas drilling, and the setting of Dunkard Creek. The TDS components can come from mining and gas, but also from other sources. For instance, water in the coal being mined is saltier that ocean water just a short distance away at the same depth. As dry as the area was at the time, the mine drainage could easily have been salty enough to account for that component in the creek water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(advocate for alarmist on anything related to the US being energy independent.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's not true. Someone has to be paying you to make these silly comments, what other reason could it be?
Why do you have a problem with drilling clean, smart energy, or cleaner healthy environment?
No, you want to type up a bunch of low-cost, fake numbers that don't include clean-up of the toxins left behind.
Why don't you include the total cost of nukes, waste storage, and enrichment?
Because you can't! It would make clean energy cheap by comparison.
The kids have a saying about talking....I'm sure you've heard it.
You can poison something to the point that it can't never recover.
What kind of a person thinks like that?
The e-mail are just talk. No water data is included.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere's the water tests reports?
I know for a fact that small changes that can make a fish tank stink rotten eggs. Duckweed will help clean the water only if you have enough (in my case) Goldfish to eat it. Other wise it will over grow the tank and kill the fish. Duckweed loves dirty water.
We lost power for 5 days in New England after an October snow storm,
I tried duckweed to help the water, lucky for me my fish ate most of it. My friend feeds her chickens dried Duckweed form her pond and they all enjoy it. I sure if it's controlled, it can be put to good use. There's interesting studies on it. Duckweed does not like salt! So, it's not salt.