On Oct. 11, 2001, about 100 folks gathered outside Massey Energy’s headquarters in Charleston to mark the anniversary of the nation’s worst "blackwater" spill. One year ago to the day, over 300 million gallons of sludge broke through from a coal waste slurry impoundment at Kentucky’s largest mountaintop removal operation, a site owned by a Massey Energy subsidiary.

The lava-like black goo (laden with heavy metals present in coal and coal cleaning chemicals and who- knows- what- they- dump- in- those- impoundments) poured into Coldwater and Wolf Creeks and oozed 100 miles down the Tug Fork and Big Sandy Rivers into the Ohio, closing down community water supplies and devastating aquatic life. People’s yards and gardens were buried in over seven feet of sludge. The disaster "helped" place the Big Sandy on American Rivers’ Most Endangered Rivers list.

Residents are upset about the slow pace of the clean-up. Some still can’t drink their well water. Septic systems are not working. What’s left of stream bank vegetation isn’t healthy. People are worried about their health.

Still, Massey Energy insists it is a good corporate neighbor, even though the sludge disaster represents just one of Massey’s frequent blackwater spills, which in turn represents just one aspect of Massey’s highly questionable record: Miner fatalities. Strong anti-union stand. Contracts with frequently overweight coal trucks, one of which was recently involved in a deadly accident. Avoidance of worker’s comp taxes.

So, on the one-year anniversary of the catastrophe Massey called "an act of God," we gathered outside Massey headquarters to deliver a list of demands, asking Massey to clean up its act. Present were representatives of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, OVEC, Student Activism for the Environment (Marshall University), Coal River Mountain Watch, Citizens' Coal Council, West Virginia Rivers Coalition Conservancy, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Kentucky Sierra Club and the United Mine Workers of America. (So far, the UMW does NOT support our drive for a ban on mountaintop removal, but the union certainly agrees with us that Massey Energy is bad news for labor and the environment.)

Nowadays, Massey tries hard at public relations (greenwashing), even though their spokesman is frequently unavailable for comment. But, back before Massey was so PR slick, it inadvertently let the truth out:

The day after our protest at Massey, the National Academy of Sciences released its report on coal waste impoundments. Citizen outcry after the sludge disaster pressured Congress to order the study.

The study shows that there are no guarantees a similar disaster won’t happen at any of the nation’s 700 coal waste impoundments, as information used in engineering the impoundments is frequently inaccurate and government oversight has been WAY slack.

One problem with the failed Massey impoundment was that coal-company submitted maps indicated at least 70 feet of rock between the bottom of the impoundment and the ceiling of underlying mineworks. In actuality, the rock barrier is less than 18 feet in some places.

The study makes several recommendations, many of which would give the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) more oversight of coal dams. That’s cold comfort, because OSM has had a hands-off attitude toward reining in the excesses of the coal industry. Six years before the Oct. 11, 2000 sludge catastrophe, after a smaller spill, MSHA knew of potentially life threatening problems at the impoundment. Even so, MSHA did not force Massey Energy to enact safety measures. MSHA has just released its own report on the sludge disaster, downplaying both the inaccurate mapping and its own negligence.

The National Academy of Science study calls for research to identify just what chemical compounds are in coal waste slurry and how the compounds affect water quality around the impoundments. The study also suggests that the coal industry and regulators work to establish alternatives to coal waste impoundments.