WV 100,000 gallons coal slurry spill into river

[Glenn]

 

'Significant' slurry spill blackens Kanawha creek
100,000 gallons escapes Patriot Coal facility

 

 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- More than 100,000 gallons of coal slurry poured into an eastern Kanawha County stream Tuesday in what officials were calling a "significant spill" from a Patriot Coal processing facility.

Emergency officials and environmental inspectors said roughly six miles of Fields Creek had been blackened and that a smaller amount of the slurry made it into the Kanawha River near Chesapeake.

"This has had significant, adverse environmental impact to Fields Creek and an unknown amount of impact to the Kanawha River," said Secretary Randy Huffman of the state Department of Environmental Protection. "This is a big deal, this is a significant slurry spill."

"When this much coal slurry goes into the stream, it wipes the stream out."

 

Reference

 

Charleston is about 17 miles from down stream from the coal slurry spill.  We are safe.

 

Coal slurry is the coal files and water held in a pond while the fines separate out and move to the bottom of the pond.

[ThomasPowers]

I would expect levels of toxins present in coal to start rising even 17 miles downstream given enough time; mercury, radionuclides; things that don't degrade with exposure....  Unless they can dam it off whereupon it will wait till that dam breaks...