Coal and Water News

Environmental justice advocates are looking to link communities of color with experience fighting industrial polluters and landfills with polluted communities in Appalachia—a “big tent,” strength-in-numbers approach they say is ripe for results.

We are two women who have different connections to Appalachia, but who share a passion for the mountains. Melissa grew up in Van Lear, the home of Loretta Lynn.  Her mom and dad still reside there. Many of her relatives worked in the mines, including both of her grandfathers. Rebecca lived much of her adult life in the hills of North Carolina.

KFTC and allies have asked a federal bankruptcy judge to consider the environmental liabilities created by Blackjewel LLC and its affiliate mining companies in settling the company’s bankruptcy case.

Blackjewel – the company that gained notoriety last year when it shut down while owing its workers unpaid wages – has unreclaimed mines throughout eastern Kentucky, as well as in Virginia and West Virginia.

In filings earlier this year, Blackjewel assured the court that the majority of its permits and reclamation obligations had been assumed by other operations, which would be responsible for maintaining and reclaiming the sites.

However, there has been no activity to transfer 149 of the 213 permits the company holds in Kentucky, research has revealed. In the meantime, environmental violations continue to grow at many of the sites.

“We’re alarmed by the fact that so few permit transfers have even been initiated, let alone completed. We’re also alarmed by high, and increasing, number of permit violations at the non-transferred permits,” stated the letter written by Mary Cromer with the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, based in Whitesburg.

Members of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth have built connections with allies across the Ohio River valley over the past few years around the fight to protect ORSANCO's regulatory mission.