Roughly 2,000 nonunion retired miners are seeking a class action lawsuit against CONSOL Energy Corp., saying the company wrongfully ended their health benefits.
The Register-Herald reports Charleston-based law firm Mountain State Justice filed paperwork in federal court in West Virginia last month on behalf of the miners.
Attorney Sam Petsonk says CONSOL verbally promised to provide lifetime benefit plans that were withheld or terminated by the company at the end of 2015.
Petsonk says the miners accepted the company’s promises and therefore, declined joining a union.
Petsonk says they want CONSOL to restore the full $2,500 per year per retiree in health spending accounts.
He says although the promise was verbal, enforcing it does fall under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
This week the federal Environmental Protection Agency came to a 3-million dollar agreement with Consol Energy over contaminated discharges from a site in Pennsylvania.
Consol has agreed to stop discharging contaminants from its Bailey Mine Complex in Greene and Washington counties in Pennsylvania. The facility discharges into Wheeling Creek and other tributaries that flow into the Ohio River.
Consol has agreed to prevent further discharges, monitor the sites, and pay a 3 million dollar fine. That money is supposed to be split between state and federal government agencies. The EPA estimates the measures Consol takes will eliminate more than 2.5 million pounds of pollutants from being released.
Outside the building, a line of about 200 people wait their turn to talk to CONSOL. Many who came here Tuesday own land or royalties in Lewis County.
Jackie Smith is one of them. “I think it’s time. We need gas. So therefore we don’t have to depend on other countries.”
Credit Roxy Todd
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Just how many new wells are being planned for Lewis County? Where will they be? These are the questions almost everybody here is asking, no matter which side of the issue they stand.
Barbara Volk is a horse podiatrist and has a small farm in Camden She heard tonight that CONSOL would like to eventually build well pads along Churchville Rd, about 4 and a half miles from her farm. Those well pads would be along the same creek that her horses drink from. She’s worried that if this water becomes polluted, she won’t have another supply of water for her farm.
“As a surface owner, I feel we are bulldozed. We are treated like we don’t exist and nobody cares. I did actually speak with someone. And he assured me that everything is going to be according to EPA regulations, and that the environment will be protected and the water will be protected. But frankly, from what I have seen in Doddridge county, and surrounding areas, I don’t believe that’s going to be the case,” Volk said.
Concerns for drinking water were among the questions people asked company representatives. “To date we have had no impact on any of these Marcellus well site locations, that showed that we have reduced the quality of the drinking water on the area. ” said Jeremy Jones, with CONSOL energy.
Jones explained that the company makes every effort to ensure that drill sites do not have any leaks where contaminated chemicals could leach into the aquifer.
He also emphasized the new jobs that this new development will bring to Lewis County.
“Just driving out here this evening to Jackson’s Mill, you’ll see several water truck and service companies that are already rebounding from the activity that’s already occuring. Marcellus Shale Coalition states that 1 well will create up to 450 jobs throughout 150 disciplines, per well,” said Jones.
These jobs, however, will only last for a short period of time, mostly during the construction of well pads-which takes about 12 months.
And Alan Shaw says he’s not convinced the jobs that energy companies will bring to Lewis County will employ many local people. He lives in Camden, in one of the areas that could see new drilling in the next few years. He says he came to this meeting to talk about his concerns, but there was not an opportunity for public comment.
At the end of a 2 and-a-half-mile, single lane road, sits La Paix Herb Farm. Owner Myra Bonhage-Hale is a retired social worker in her 70’s. She and her son Bill live here, in a brightly painted, purple homestead that dates back to the 1800’s. The house, formerly called the May-Kraus home, is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Bonhage-Hale grows a variety of herbs that she distils into essential oils and hydrosols. She makes about $8,000 a year selling her herbal products and doing herbal workshops on her farm. She lives in the unincorporated community of Alum Bridge, and she doesn’t own her mineral rights. She’s worried that she won’t be able to keep energy companies from drilling for natural gas near her home.
“I am terrified that I am going to lose this farm to Marcellus Shale Drilling,” said Bonhage-Hale.
Credit Roxy Todd
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Myra’s son Bill and her granddaughter Aijah, who is describing her school project she has been working on upstairs
Credit Roxy Todd
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Aijah, standing in front of her garden on La Paix Herb Farm
Credit Roxy Todd
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To release gas from the Marcellus Shale rock formation deep underground, companies blast water and chemicals deep into the ground at high pressures. Bonhage-Hale is worried that at tonight’s meeting she and her family are going to find out that these types of hydraulic drilling well pads are coming to Alum Bridge. She is scared for her health and worried that her well water and the air on her farm will be contaminated.
She points to neighboring farms in Doddridge County, which has seen tremendous gas and oil development in the last few years.
“They’ve had beautiful farms, they’ve got fracking pads next door, they’ve lost all their property value. And they can’t move, cause there’s nowhere to go. And that’s very much gonna happen in Lewis County,” Bonhage-Hale said.
Exactly what is going to happen in Lewis County—that’s still unclear.
Lewis County Commission president Agnes Queen, says she’s been told most of the new development will be in the part of the county where Bonhage-Hale’s farm is located. “We know that in one area, they are anticipating 288 wells, in the Western part of the county.”
Queen said that lots of citizens are excited that drilling could bring new jobs to Lewis County.
“Many many many of our citizens currently work in the oil and gas industry, but possibly work out of state. A lot of those folks are excited because they’ll be able to work at home for awhile,” Queen said.
78-year-old Bob Shear lives just over the hill from Myra Bonhage-Hale’s farm. He feels bad about her situation. But unlike her, he owns most of his mineral rights. He’s benefited from 14 conventional gas wells on his property.
“For the hydraulic fracturing, in my case, it could make me a fortune,” said Shear.
Still, Shear is not sure yet if he would welcome fracking operations on his land.
“If it was in an out of the way place where I didn’t think that it could ever contaminate my water system, I might be agreeable.,” said Shear.
Back over the hollow at Bonhage-Hale’s Lavender farm, Myra, and her son Bill, and her granddaughter, Aijah, are out in the garden. 9-year-old Aijah has discovered three tomatoes that she planted this spring.
Bonhage-Hale fears that this idyllic scene will be lost, along with her farm’s customers, if hydraulic fracking comes to Alum Bridge.
“And I feel so badly that I spent so much time, and I grew to love something so much, that we’re all gonna lose,” said Bonhage-Hale.
If fracking plans go ahead, Bonhage-Hale is considering buying property in Maryland. But she knows that even there, she might not be able to escape the development of natural gas drilling, which could include fracking in the future.
On Tuesday, hundreds of people crowded into a tight assembly hall at Jackson’s Mill to attend a public forum, hosted by CONSOl energy. Though many people, including Myra Bonhage-Hale, were anticipating a presentation, energy company representatives instead spoke to people one on one to people. For a report on this meeting, click here.
Credit Department of Environmental Protection
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Department of Environmental Protection
Screen shot from West Virginia DEP’s interactive oil and gas wells map. Horizontal wells are marked red.
The latest figures from the Department of Environmental Protection indicate that there are upwards of 400 horizontal well pads in West Virginia. How many more will there be? Want to learn how you can navigate the DEP’s interactive Gas Well Map? Click here.
A federal judge has found another West Virginia mining operation in violation of the state’s water quality standard for selenium.
U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers’ latest ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by several environmental groups against CONSOL Energy’s Peg Fork Surface Mine.
Chambers ruled that discharges from the mine exceeded the state’s selenium standard. He based his finding on water samples taken in December 2013.
Last week, the judge ruled in a separate lawsuit that discharges from an Alpha Natural Resources coal slurry impoundment in Raleigh County violated the state’s selenium standard.
A coal company has been cited by federal mining regulators for the November 2012 collapse of a Harrison County coal slurry impoundment that left a miner dead.
Dozer operator Markel Koon of Shinnstown and his machine were swept into the impoundment when an embankment collapsed at the Robinson Run Mine’s Nolan Round impoundment near Lumberport. He was 58.
The Charleston Gazette reports that U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration investigators cited Consolidation Coal Co. for three alleged violations. The death occurred when the impoundment was operated by a subsidiary of Pittsburgh-based CONSOL Energy.
According to a report provided to family members on Wednesday, mine management tried to expand a coal-slurry impoundment faster than was considered safe, and continued the work despite warnings that the site was becoming unstable.
