The problem in Boone County W.Va. Is coal sludge pumped into abandoned mines and leeching into the water table. Slurry is created when coal is washed with water and chemicals to separate clay, rock, and other impurities that keep the carbon from burning efficiently. Injecting it into abandoned mines is a cheap way of dodging the construction cost of building another legal coal slurry impoundment. The act was made legal a few years back and Massey Energy will beat this hands down.

I have been warning on this site about the hundreds of coal slurry impoundments in Southern Appalachia that not only contain the mercury, arsenic, lead and other heavy metals the wet waste ash impoundments in Power Generation contain but also a list of chemicals that are considered carcinogens`. The practice of dumping the excess coal chemical waste water into an abandoned mine is probably better than turning the stuff loose into creeks and rivers in the area on the 3rd or maintenance shifts. I have seen this done often enough.

The scourge of Mountain Top Removal Mining is just the tip of the Environmental Destruction Iceberg in Appalachia. The fresh water streams are being covered up by  MTR and the water table is being destroyed by coal slurry or sludge impoundments or the new practice of pumping the stuff into abandoned mines.

A virtual toxic heavy metal, chemical cocktail or cesspool of elements and chemicals the EPA individually declare as Hazardous Materials. If however you mix it all up and pump it into an abandoned mine to keep form constructing a legal impoundment it's all good.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.