The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has issued a Notice of Violation (NOV) for a black water spill at Pioneer Fuel’s Horse Creek surface mine near Clear Creek, in Raleigh County.
The spill was first reported to the DEP by an anonymous caller at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 23. The company also reported the spill. By 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the company had controlled the discharge to less than a gallon per minute.
A failure in a sedimentation ditch at the Horse Creek mine caused black water to be discharged from a permitted outlet into an unnamed tributary of White Oak Creek. The spill affected approximately 2.5 miles of White Oak Creek and Clear Fork.
The Whitesville Water Treatment Plant, which is part of the Boone-Raleigh Public Service District, was notified of the discharge.