Coal company to pay big fine for water pollution

Federal officials announced this week that Patriot Coal Corp. will pay $6.5 million in fines for violating the Clean Water Act. The U.S. Justice Department announced today that the penalty is the third largest ever in a federal water-pollution case for discharge-permit violations.

"Federal officials alleged Patriot violated its water pollution permits more than 1,400 times -- representing more than 22,000 days of violations between January 2003 and December 2007 -- at its mining complexes in West Virginia," reports Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette. (Read more)