Local mining company faces record fine for alleged falsified reports
Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011, 2:40 p.m. — A Bardstown company may face a record $507,000 fine for “shoddy recordkeeping and laboratory problems” relating to water-quality sampling downstream from its coal mines in Eastern Kentucky according to Manuel Quinones of Greenwire.
Nally & Hamilton, the fourth largest coal producer of surface-mined coal in Kentucky, faces the fine onnection with an investigation by the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet that the company apparently falsified the reports it submitted to the state by re-entering virtually the same data from month to month.
The violations occurred from May 2008 through June 2010 and happened at more than a dozen of the company’s mines in Bell, Harlan, Knott, Knox, Perry, Letcher and Leslie counties.
The allegations involve failing to perform accurate testing and monitoring of pollution dumped into Kentucky waterways. As in a similar ongoing case against ICG and Frasure Creek Mining, the results of many reports were copied exactly from one reporting period to the next and submitted as new reports.
“Before our collective vision for renewable energy resources, a renewed economy and a new politics that reflect a true democracy can be realized, the destruction of our air, water and land must be stopped,” said KFTC Vice-Chair Suzanne Tallichet in a telephone press conference. “That collective vision explains why we are involved in legal actions against coal companies such as ICG, Frasure Creek and today, Nally & Hamilton.”
She was joined by representatives from Kentucky Riverkeeper, Appalachian Voices, the Waterkeeper Alliance and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“We don’t know what’s being dumped into our waters. We can’t trust the reported data,” said Pat Banks of Kentucky Riverkeeper. “Submitting a false report is an irresponsible and dangerous act – and so is failure to enforce” the law.
Environmentalists say the company should pay millions in damages, and that tougher pollution controls should be included in any agreement. “For the Cabinet to just wag its finger at Nally and metaphysically stamp its foot and say we mean it … shows that they aren’t really serious about enforcement,” said Donna Liseby, water program director for Appalachian Voices.
The Cabinet’s Office of Administrative Hearings has given Applachian Voices, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Kentucky Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance a chance to submit comments before the final decision is made in October.
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