After a nearby creek ran bright yellow last month, residents of Martin County, Ky., still have questions for local and state officials — and that’s not uncommon in a county that has seen its fair share of coal slurry spills and municipal water problems. So why are so many officials ignoring the problem?
An 11-year-old influenced the selection of Virginia’s official state snake, 17-year cicada brood is expected in northern West Virginia and Ohio, Tennessee legislators push for wilderness designation in the Cherokee National Forest and more.
Our Appalachian Water Watch team was able to document the spill of acidic water on Pine Creek as it occurred in real-time, spurring public outcry and state action against the mining company.
Through a settlement with Penn Virginia Operating Company, a large landholding company, and A&G Coal Corp., a Jim Justice-owned company, several sources of the toxic pollutant selenium in Wise County, Va., will be cleaned up.
A lot of folks have had questions about last month’s mine blowout on Pine Creek, in Letcher County, Ky. So we’ve put together an explainer that runs through the facts, the science and the regulatory protocols behind spills like this — and offers tips on what you can do about them.
State officials in North Carolina owe citizens an apology and an explanation. The state Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Health and Human Services are walking back their own recommendations that families living near coal ash ponds not drink or cook using well water containing levels of toxic substances that exceed their own standards.
In both North Carolina and Virginia coal ash impoundments are being drained into lakes and rivers, a stage in the clean-up efforts that is causing citizen and environmental groups concerns.
The Department of Energy is still removing radioactive sludge from the sewage treatment facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., two years after the contamination was first discovered.
Two years after 10,000 gallons of a toxic chemical, MCHM, spilled into the Elk River near Charleston, W.Va., the company providing water to 40 percent of West Virginians “continues to be unprepared for a major spill today,” a new report says.
In Fayette County, W.Va., residents speaking up against natural gas drilling wastewater spurred a county-wide ban on the use, storage or disposal of any oil or gas waste.
