Coal Waste Dams and Impoundments
The U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has announced it will conduct intensive inspections of some 600 coal mine waste impoundment dams throughout Appalachia in the wake of the October 11, 2000, impoundment failure at the Martin County Coal Corporation in southeastern Kentucky.
In the early morning hours of Oct. 11, 2000, it was discovered that an inrush of water and slurry from an impoundment had
entered the underground workings of an abandoned mine of the Martin County Coal Corporation near Pilgrim, Ky.
Reports indicate more than 250 million gallons of sludge–water containing coal dust and other mine waste–poured into
the underground mine, bursting through portals and, eventually flowed into tributaries of the Big Sandy River. No one was
injured in the incident.
Below are some materials related to impoundments.
- IMPORTANT NOTICE - All impoundment and dust fraud inquiries/complaints should now use the MSHA National Hazard Reporting line on (800) 746-1554. This single automated line is now set up to accommodate each of the 3 previous complaint lines; Code-a Phone complaints, Impoundment Hot-line complaints, and the Dust Fraud Hot-line.
- What is in a coal mine waste impoundment?
- Coal Waste Dams and Impoundments
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