Big news on the Big ‘Clean Coal’ front today, just breaking from AP’s Dina Cappiello [emphasis added]…
The proposed settlement is the largest ever of its kind.
The Associated Press obtained details before the settlement involving Alpha Natural Resources Inc. was filed in court in West Virginia.
The government says the company and its subsidiaries violated water pollution limits in state-issued permits more than 6,000 times between 2006 and 2013.
The government says they discharged heavy metals harmful to fish and other wildlife directly into rivers and streams.
The companies agreed to take measures to reduce discharges from 79 active coal mines and 25 processing plants in Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
In January of 2011, Alpha Natural Resources, then the third largest coal producer in the U.S., purchased Massey Energy Co. for $7.1 billion to become what Bloomberg News described as “the world’s third-largest metallurgical coal producer” and “the second-largest U.S. coal company by sales, with almost 14,000 employees.”
The acquisition happened just months after the horrific April 5th, 2010 explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine near Montcoal, West Virginia. 29 people were killed in the explosion, described as “the worst U.S. coal mining disaster in 40 years.”
The tragedy at the Upper Big Branch mine would be upstaged just 15 days later, on April 20th, when BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and dumping some 5 million barrels of crude oil into the water over the next 87 days.
As coal and oil families mourned in WV and elsewhere, and as the country watched the unprecedented and unstoppable toxic discharge in the Gulf, it seems that Alpha was quietly poisoning rivers and streams in at least five states and fighting, along with fellow supporters of Big Fossil Fuel, to block the nation’s transition to clean, renewable energy.
I believe the corp can write off the fines. So this is less than a slap on the wrist.
The devil’s in the details.
Alpha Natural resources violated pollution limits 6,000 times in 7 yr’s. With 2,555 day’s in 7 yr’s that means they violated their permitted amount they are allowed to pollute more than twice a day , or more than twice in volume every day.
I guess pollution limits means they are allowed to pollute but only so much, allotted by permit.
The company putting out more than twice as much should mean they ramped up production more than twice as much for seven yr’s.
Now my question is how much extra profits did they make in those seven yr’s, verses a mere 27.5 million dollars in fines. Dont they always come out ahead?
200 mil to be paid to reduce illegal toxic discharges. Isn’t that statement a little vague, ‘to be paid’ and doesn’t illegal mean against the law?
Moral of the story , the company gets to pollute our rivers and streams with illegal toxic pollution, but only a little bit.
Technically there are at least 2556 days in seven years (sometimes 2557, darn those stupid leap-years). But yeah, when you violate a permit 2.35 times a day over a 7 year period maybe something more than a fine should be issued.