Environmental attorney Sanders says James Hecker and Public Justice score a huge victory over West Virginia's attempt to evade Clean Water Act.

West Virginia must clean up toxic acid mine drainage from abandoned coal mines. In a recent federal court decision, West Virginia must clean up toxic acid mine drainage from abandoned coal mines so that discharges comply with water pollution limits. The January 14, 2009 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia could also force the State to increase coal taxes to fund millions of dollars of pollution reductions.

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (“WVDEP”) took over 18 abandoned coal mining sites after the mine operators went bankrupt. The state allowed toxic wastewater discharges from the mine sites to pollute the waters of the United States. The federal court refused to allow this patently illegal conduct to continue unabated. As a result, West Virginia now has the long-term problem of reclaiming the sites and treating storm water runoff contaminated with the mines' pollution.

All of this did not have to occur, and the taxpayers of West Virginia now need answers from its elected officials on what went wrong here. For example, WVDEP did not require coal operators to post bonds sufficient to cover the costs of cleanup, or impose coal severance taxes high enough to function as a backup financing mechanism when the operators defaulted on those bonds.

Instead, West Virginia set the bond amounts and taxes artificially low to protect the coal industry. The State also tried to immunize itself from citizen enforcement actions under the Clean Water Act by refusing to obtain federally-enforceable discharge permits after it took over the sites and began operating the treatment systems. The court ruled that there are no exemptions under the Clean Water Act for NPDES obligations for states charged with reclamation duties under SMCRA.

The federal district court agreed that West Virginia was violating federal law and is responsible for its shameful conduct. To read the decision, click here <http://www.publicjustice.net/briefs/WVminecleanup_decision_011409.pdf> .