Mining company to pay $300,000
ENVIRONMENT | Bruce Rushton
Attorney General Lisa Madigan has settled a pollution lawsuit against a Carlinville coal mine operator for nearly $300,000.
Under terms of the settlement, Macoupin Energy, a subsidiary of Foresight Energy, will also have to take steps to reduce groundwater pollution at its mine purchased in 2009. The company will pay $100,000 in penalties to the attorney general’s office, plus nearly $200,000 to address water issues that have nothing to do with problems caused by coal mines.
The company would pay $97,500 to the village of New Haven, which is 170 miles southeast of the Carlinville mine, to pay for a backup power source for the village’s water treatment plant so that it can keep running in the event of a power outage. The company will also pay $100,000 to the Macoupin County Soil and Water Conservation District to help control erosion on stream banks and control drainage on farmland to prevent contaminants from farming activity from entering streams and groundwater.
Annie Thompson, spokeswoman for Attorney General Lisa Madigan, said that the payments to New Haven and the conservation district aren’t required by law but were included in the settlement to address water quality issues that would not otherwise be addressed as part of the lawsuit.
The settlement, which dictates pollution control measures the company must take for the next 23 years, is intended to address problems caused by massive impoundments that contain slurries of waste from mining operations. The impoundments, built without liners that would prevent hazardous waste from leaching into groundwater, have been the source of more than 1,000 violations of pollution standards since Macoupin Energy bought the mine six years ago, according to the lawsuit filed last summer in Macoupin County Circuit Court.
Since Macoupin Energy acquired the mine in 2009, the attorney general says that discharges of chloride have exceeded legal limits 165 times. Iron limits have been exceeded 115 times, the attorney general’s office says, and sulfate violations have occurred 309 times. Manganese limits have been exceeded 168 times, according to the attorney general’s office. Macoupin Energy says that at least 181 of the violations occurred before the company resumed operations at the mine, which was closed down when ExxonMobil sold the property, which was ExxonMobil’s last remaining coal mine in the United States.
Shortly before acquiring the mine, Macoupin Energy received assurances from a top Illinois Environmental Protection Agency official that the state would work “in a cooperative spirit” to address pollution problems at the site.
In 2009, Robert A. Messina, then chief general counsel for IEPA whom Gov. Bruce Rauner named as his top adviser on environmental issues in January, told Macoupin Energy prior to the company purchasing the mine that it “is not our practice to bring enforcement actions or levy monetary penalties so long as the new owner/operator is making good faith efforts.”
The 2009 letter prompted officials with Foresight, the parent company of Macoupin Energy, to cry foul when the EPA in 2012 notified the company that it intended to take legal action to force solutions to long-festering groundwater pollution problems from impoundments that contain mining waste.
Under the consent decree reached on Sept. 14, the company will be required to dig groundwater collection trenches to restrict the movement of polluted water from two impoundments. The collected water will be pumped to the mine’s water treatment facilities. The company also must install drains at the two impoundments to direct water to treatment facilities. The company will place coal ash, a byproduct from burning coal that contains limestone that can neutralize acids in mining waste, over the drains. One of the impoundments must be capped and out of use by Dec. 31, 2023, under terms of the order. The other must be capped and decommissioned by Dec. 31, 2038. The company will be required to monitor groundwater quality in the area after the impoundments are closed.
The goal is to prevent groundwater from migrating offsite, Thompson said via email. Water from areas where coal ash will be placed will be drawn above the ground to prevent further pollution, she wrote, and the ash will increase the fill rate of the two impoundments so that they can be shut down and capped more quickly, Thompson said. The ash will ultimately develop cement-like characteristics, Thompson wrote, and so will provide structural integrity. She also said that two feet of clayfilled soil that will cap the impoundments will impede the flow of water to fill material that includes ash.
Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected].