Artie, W.Va.—Alpha Metallurgical Resources subsidiary Republic Energy has proposed a 942-acre mountaintop removal site within a half mile of most Artie homes, between White Oak Creek and Fulton Creek. The Fulton East permit, S300721, would have 3 valley fills, including one right behind Stover Cemetery. It would impose the usual MTR hazards to the community, including blasting, with clouds of carcinogenic dust, and increased risk and severity of flooding. It would extract 4,765,000 tons of coal.We Object To Renewed Mountaintop Removal
Nov 29, 2022
And you can, too, regarding the Twilight MTR surface mine permit, S502396, 2,455 acres of former lush Appalachian forest, now a feeble attempt at reclamation by Lexington Coal Co. This permit is part of the 12-square-mile Twilight complex on Cherry Pond Mountain on the border of Boone and Raleigh Counties, WV. WV Dept. of Environmental Protection cited this permit July 29, 2021 for failure to "reclaim all secions of highwall within 180 days of final mineral removal." As of Oct. 27, 2022, WVDEP had granted 16 extensions, with the most recent "abate by" date of Nov. 29, 2022. In June, July, and August 2022, WVDEP's inspector wrote that Lexington had "ceased reclamation activities." On Oct. 27 he wrote that Lexington had "one piece of equipment that alternates between two adjacent permits..." 
It's worth noting that Lexington has had 9 violations on this permit since July 2021, and that WVDEP suspended two adjacent permits, the Crescent 2 permit and Twilight III-A permit, on Sept. 12, 2022, and Aug. 15, 2022, respectively. The Twilight III-A permit had just been renewed four months earlier on April Fools' Day, 2022, over our objections. In March and June, we had urged stronger action, such as revoking the permits, based on Lexington's multiple patterns of violation at these permits. The suspension order on Crescent 2 has since been lifted.
Today, we still have over a hundred active coal sludge dams in West Virginia. Among them are the Shumate’s Branch impoundment just 400 yards upstream from the old Marsh Fork Elementary School and the Brushy Fork impoundment above the communities of Pettus and Whitesville.
At 2.8 billion gallons, Shumate’s is more than 20 times the volume of the Buffalo Creek disaster. At around 8 billion gallons, Brushy Fork holds more than 60 times the volume. Brushy Fork holds the added distinction of being built over abandoned underground mines, the same way, and by the same company, as the Martin County, KY, sludge dam that broke through in 1994 and again in 2000. Brushy Fork is also adjacent to the Bee Tree mountaintop removal site, which is “inactive” for now but could resume operations, including heavy blasting, whenever the coal company, Alpha Metallurgical Resources, feels like it. But never fear! The coal company’s hired expert has assured them that, even if the underground mines collapsed, everything would be fine. And WV Dept. of Environmental Protection engineer Greg Demyan has stated that blasting next to a dam can be good for it; he googled it.
Coal River Mountain Watch outreach coordinator CRMW's Junior Walk, who attended the old Marsh Fork Elementary School and lives downstream of Brushy Fork, had this to say about the 50th anniversary:
Join us in opposing renewal of the Twilight III-A permit, S502408. You can join in the virtual conference Wednesday, March 2, at 3 PM at 
Thanks for sticking with us at Coal River Mountain Watch for another challenging year for all. Here’s a short summary of what we’ve been doing. 
The old Marsh Fork Elementary School (black flat roof--the white building is the gym) across the Marsh Fork of the Big Coal River from Alpha Metallurgical Resources' Goals Coal preparation plant, under a 2.8 billion-gallon waste sludge dam. The orange ponds are treatment of coal waste before it's put back into the river. 
Coal River Mountain Watch objects to renewal of permit S301004 operated by former Massey Energy subsidiary Marfork Coal Company, now a subsidiary of Alpha Metallurgical Resources. You can also object. Include the permit number, S301004, in your objection by email to Laura.B.Claypool@wv.gov by Friday, June 18, at 5 PM. About a thousand acres of this site remain "undisturbed." The "mined and reclaimed" portion of the site, visible on the ridge on the other side of the sludge lake and shown in red on the map below, is nothing to brag about, and Alpha has withdrawn their phase 1 bond release application for this portion. 
WVDEP is also holding an online "informal conference" (public hearing), where you can voice your objections, or you can ask questions of the WVDEP (at the beginning of the hearing), or you can just watch WVDEP go through their statutory motions before they give Alpha another five years to continue blasting this part of Coal River Mountain into dust. The link to the conference is at 
