CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Magnum Coal has agreed to give West Virginia $3.5 million and an enormous pile of love-seat-sized rocks to settle a Clean Water Act lawsuit over dumping selenium into a southern West Virginia river.
While the state Department of Environmental Protection says the settlement announced Friday calls for $4 million in payments, the agreement allows Hobet Mining to substitute 32,500 sandstone boulders for $500,000.
"I'm really surprised the big deal everybody's making about the rocks," said DEP Secretary Randy Huffman, who said the agency routinely includes non-cash items in settlements. "The main thing is, it sends a strong message."
A Magnum representative did not immediately return a call seeking comment. The Charleston-based company is on the verge of being acquired by St. Louis-based Patriot Coal, whose shareholders are scheduled to vote on the $709 million deal July 22.
The executive director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, which has a Clean Water Act lawsuit pending against Hobet in federal court, was stunned that the DEP would accept rocks.
"This is almost beyond ridiculous," Janet Keating said. "How about money? How about cold cash and maybe hiring more inspectors? How about filling that 100 vacancies they have in DEP?"
The deal does require gradual reductions in selenium discharges from the Hobet 21 Surface Mine — a sprawling mountaintop removal coal mine — and test projects to determine whether steel wool filters and two other potential treatments can remove selenium from streams that flow off the surface mine and into the nearby Mud River.
The tests and pilot projects will "hopefully" help the DEP understand how to remove selenium, Huffman said.
While tiny amounts of selenium are considered necessary for health, slightly larger quantities can be toxic to humans and cause reproductive problems for aquatic life.
Keating, however, said she'd prefer a "real" system for treating selenium. The settlement does call for a reverse osmosis demonstration project, which Keating considers a better option.
The rocks, meanwhile, are destined for a restoration project on the Coal River, another southern West Virginia stream. The DEP figures to save the $800,000 cost of buying boulders, Huffman said.
Keating, however, figures the DEP is letting Hobet off easy. Operations at Hobet produce literally mountains of rock that cover what OVEC says is now nearly 19 square miles of Lincoln and Boone counties.
The deal with DEP requires Hobet to set aside some of that rock for the agency or its contractors to cart off.
"It certainly isn't costing them anything near where it would cost a rock quarry or anything like that," Huffman conceded. "There is some element of work that they have to accomplish in order to make them available. Granted it's not anywhere near $800,000."
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