West Virginia’s two U.S. senators say they’ll be watching closely to see how Ohio-based Murray Energy treats safety and the workforce of the five CONSOL Energy mines it’s buying.
Senators Joe Manchin and Jay Rockefeller have requested a meeting with Murray Energy to discuss the transition.
The companies announced the deal Monday for the sale of the Blacksville No. 2, Loveridge, McElroy, Robinson Run and Shoemaker mines.
Pennsylvania-based CONSOL said it wants to shift resources to natural gas development.
Manchin says CONSOL is an industry leader in mine safety, and he hopes Murray Energy will also put miners first.
Rockefeller says Murray Energy must make protecting workers and retirees a priority.
Murray Energy says it operates safe mines but cannot yet comment on its plans for the workforce.
Author: Associated Press
More C8-related lawsuits brought against DuPont
Nine Ohio and West Virginia residents who have cancer and other diseases have filed federal lawsuits this month against chemical giant DuPont, alleging…
Nine Ohio and West Virginia residents who have cancer and other diseases have filed federal lawsuits this month against chemical giant DuPont, alleging the company knowingly contaminated drinking-water supplies with a chemical used by one of its plants.
The lawsuits, filed Oct. 8 and this week, are among about 50 such cases — including one alleging wrongful death — filed against DuPont since April. An independent court-appointed science panel found probable links between exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as C8, and kidney cancer, testicular cancer and thyroid disease, among others. The panel announced the last of their findings in October 2012 as their obligations to the study concluded.
DuPont, based in Wilmington, Del., uses C8 at its Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, but plans to stop making and using the chemical by 2015. C8 is a key ingredient in Teflon, the coating used on cookware, clothing and other products.
The recent litigation is the latest in a yearslong battle between DuPont and residents of the Mid-Ohio Valley.
About 80,000 area residents filed a class-action lawsuit against the company in 2001. It resulted in a settlement in which DuPont agreed to pay as much as $343 million for residents’ medical tests, the removal of as much C8 from the area’s water supply as possible and the science panel’s study into whether C8 causes disease in humans.
Brookmar, Inc. was appointed by the Wood County Circuit Court to conduct the C8 Health Porject as part of the class-action settlement agreement. The purpose was to collect health data from class members through written questionnaires and a battery of blood tests, including a test to ascertain the amount of C8 in the blood. The C8 Health Project began testing in late July 2005.
“These are folks who’ve been waiting many, many years to be able to pursue these claims,” said Rob Bilott, a Cincinnati attorney who has been working on the case for more than 15 years and represents the Mid-Ohio Valley residents. “Our goal is to be able to get these resolved for them and move forward as quickly as we can.”
In a written statement, DuPont spokesman Dan Turner pointed out the company’s efforts to pay for the medical study of C8 and fund a medical monitoring program for residents exposed to the chemical.
“Lawsuits such as these ignore family history, lifestyle choices and other causes of health issues and disease in specific individuals,” Turner said. “DuPont will vigorously defend against any and all such lawsuits not based upon valid science.”
The roughly 50 recent lawsuits in Ohio and West Virginia, which seek unspecified damages, have been consolidated into one case being presided over by a federal judge in Columbus. The first trial in the matter is set for September 2015.
Many of the lawsuits are more than 50 pages long and accuse the company of negligence, concealment, fraud, deception, battery and the “negligent, intentional and reckless infliction of emotional distress and outrage.”
The lawsuits allege that DuPont’s own research had concluded by at least 1961 that C8 was toxic and it conducted studies in the 1980s showing higher-than-normal birth defects among babies born to its female employees.
DuPont is accused of recklessly, maliciously and knowingly ignoring the risks and releasing C8 into the air and groundwater through its production practices, all while telling members of the public and news media that C8 was safe.
"No reasonable person could be expected to endure the knowledge that an entity has knowingly and intentionally exposed them to years of harmful contact with a dangerous chemical, and has furthermore actively misrepresented and/or concealed such danger from them, while reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in profits as a direct and proximate result," the lawsuit says.
The lawsuits quote internal notes written by DuPont’s attorneys, obtained during previous litigation, that show their apparent frustration.
“Too bad the business wants to hunker down as though everything will not come out in the litigation,” wrote one attorney who was not named in 2001, according to the lawsuit. “God knows how they could be so clueless. Don’t they read the paper or go to the movies?”
Among the lawsuits is one filed by Virginia Morrison of Parkersburg, accusing DuPont of causing the death of her husband in 2008 from injuries related to kidney cancer.
DuPont denies all the allegations in court filings, saying that plaintiffs’ damages, if any, were caused by acts of God or actions of others, “over which DuPont had no control,” and were not reasonably foreseeable by the company.
Drug firms told to reveal W.Va. shipment records
A Boone County judge has ordered four pharmaceutical drug distributors to reveal their shipments to West Virginia pharmacies over the past five years.…
A Boone County judge has ordered four pharmaceutical drug distributors to reveal their shipments to West Virginia pharmacies over the past five years.
Circuit Judge William Thompson acted Thursday in a lawsuit filed last year by former state Attorney General Darrell McGraw. The suit accused the companies of helping to contribute to the state’s pain pill abuse epidemic.
The Charleston Gazette reports Cardinal Health, Anda Inc., AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. and J.M Smith Corp. must disclose within 30 days every state pharmacy where they’ve delivered drugs.
West Virginia leads the nation in the rate of fatal drug overdoses. A report released this month by the Trust for America’s Health says that rate is now six times higher than it was about a decade ago.
Federal cuts eliminate Tucker Co. Head Start
West Virginia’s Head Start preschool program is no longer available in every county due to federal budget cuts, state officials said Tuesday.
The federally funded program helps prepare low-income children for elementary school and also provides them with meals and health care. The programs are a legacy of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1960s war on poverty.
But because of automatic federal spending cuts known as sequestration, 461 classroom spots were eliminated in West Virginia. There were 8,075 children enrolled in Head Start in West Virginia in the 2012 fiscal year, according to federal figures.
The cuts were put in place after Congress and the White House failed to reach agreement two years ago on a plan to cut the federal deficit. Funding for the program is provided in the form of grants to 21 local community organizations.
Traci Dalton, director of West Virginia’s Head Start Collaboration Office, told lawmakers during a legislative interim meeting that the cuts meant that the program had to be eliminated in Tucker County. Previously, all 55 West Virginia counties had Head Start programs in them.
Nationwide, more than 57,000 spots for children were eliminated. Dalton said West Virginia is better off than some other states because it offers a universal preschool program for 4-year-old children, and some of those who would have gone to Head Start likely enrolled in that program.
“We’re glad they’re being served somewhere, however there are services that are being lost to those families,” she said. “The health component, I mean, we have staff that are driving children to the dentist, taking families and making sure they’re getting their immunizations. … Those are the types of services that are being lost.”
But Dalton also warned that another round of sequestration would likely mean more cuts. So far, 80 Head Start positions have been eliminated, she said.
West Virginia Head Start programs receive about $55 million, down from $58 million before sequestration.
Dalton did not have an estimate on exactly how many children would be impacted or in which counties if sequestration continues. She said the average cost for each child enrolled in Head Start in West Virginia is about $7,200.
Dalton encouraged lawmakers to contact the state’s congressional delegation to get funding restored.
Agriculture Dept. still deciding site of hog farm to feed inmates
A West Virginia Department of Agriculture spokesman says the agency hasn’t yet selected a site for a hog farm that would help feed state inmates.
Last week, Mingo County Revelopment Authority director Steve Kominar told the authority’s board that the county had been chosen as a site for the hog farm.
Department of Agriculture spokesman Butch Antolini said Tuesday that Mingo County is one of several locations being looked at in the southern coalfields.
Agriculture Commissioner Walk Helmick says the state buys more than 100,000 pounds of pork annually from outside the state to feed inmates in state prisons. That doesn’t include regional jails and juvenile facilities.
Helmick says taxpayer dollars used to feed and house inmates should be spent in West Virginia.
Kanawha Co. clerk seeks delay in gay marriage lawsuit
The clerk of West Virginia’s biggest county says she needs more time to answer a lawsuit over the state’s ban on same-sex marriages.
Kanawha County Clerk Vera McCormick filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Charleston, asking the deadline for her response be extended past Wednesday.
The New York-based gay rights group Lambda Legal sued earlier this month, declaring West Virginia’s Defense of Marriage Act a violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
It filed a similar lawsuit challenging Virginia’s gay marriage ban in September.
McCormick says the case involves constitutional questions of widespread importance, and 21 days is not long enough for her to prepare.
She also says it’s unfair to require a response before she knows whether the state Attorney General is going to intervene.