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From: "Chetan Talwalkar" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Summary of interview with residents of Coldwater Fork
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 11:08:47 -0500
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This is a summary of a conversation with two residents who live by Coldwater
Fork, conducted during the recent Sierra Club trip to the area.  One of the
two residents is a retired miner.

- The spill began about midnight and continued for about 5 hours, but it
took three days for the sludge to stop flowing down Coldwater Creek.  It
flowed like molasses.  During that time people just watched as the sludge
rose higher and higher by the hour and by the day.

- The coal company is trying to build a dam just near its property line.

- A utility company representative who got within a mile of the dam site saw
everything covered in sludge.

- Most of the sludge came down Coldwater Fork.  Wolf Creek got more dilute
slurry.

- Originally the coal company tried to push the sludge back into the creek
bed, but EPA would not allow them to continue.

- The valley was the most desirable place to live in the area.  Lots of new
and large houses.

- The coal company already told a man living near their property line (about
4 miles distant from dam site) that they would not be able to clean it up
and would need to buy him out.

- A bridge near that man's home was normally 8 or 9 feet above the creek.
It is now about level with the sludge that has spread out and filled in the
floodplain.  What will happen if a large rain comes?

- After the spill some people got their luggage, 4-wheeled or hiked over the
hill, and haven't been seen since.

- Animals are getting coated by sludge as they approach water.  Workers have
been seen pulling deer out of the muck.  One man saved a sludge-covered
snapping turtle by releasing it into Mullet Fork, an unaffected creek that
runs into Coldwater Fork.

- There is lots of film footage of the spill as it was happening (both 35
mm, digital camera, and videotape).

- Work was going on 24 hours a day using heavy equipment.  The noise has
eased a bit now, with some work stopped late at night.

- A hog lagoon mixer/sprayer is being used to keep the sludge from settling
out and to keep it flowing downstream.

- The sludge is so thick that pumping equipment is being damaged.  Drive
shafts worth thousands of dollars each are getting sheared off.

- Heavy equipment has damaged sewer lines to septic tanks.  Septic systems
are failing [due to inflow or lack of outflow due to soil saturation?], and
the oozing raw sewage is pooling on or by the sludge.  A road being
constructed in people's back yards to allow equipment to get near some parts
of the creek without getting bogged down is adding to the problem by damming
off some of the sewage flow, thus causing it to pool even deeper.

- Photos appearing in the media don't do justice to the devasation caused by
the spill because everything looks like it's covered by a peaceful lake
instead of by black goo.

- Cleanup work spills lots of sludge onto the road.  It comes off loaders
and oozes out of truck beds as it is being hauled away.  The sludge flows
into people's driveways and yards off the road.  It is also very slick.


Chetan Talwalkar
Democracy Resource Center
253 Regency Circle, Suite A
Lexington, KY 40503
606.276.0563
606.276.0774 (fax)
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