Faced with an engineerng study that one expert said was "groundbreaking" for the area, four coal companies settled with 91 residents near Quicksand Creek in Breathitt County, Kentucky, over flood damage the residents said was worsened by the companies' strip mines. They filed a lawsuit against Miller Brothers Coal, Appalachian Fuels, Lexington Coal and International Coal Group sayign they "exacerbated flooding after heavy rains in May 2009," Dori Hjalmarson of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.
A Virginia engineering firm compared the Quicksand Creek watershed to a predicted watershed if no mining had never been done and "found that peak flows in the creek increased 77 percent to 81 percent during a rain like the soaking that occurred May 8 and 9, 2009," Hjalmarson reports. Jack Spadaro, the plaintiffs' reclamation and hydrology expert and former federal inspector, told Hjalmarson, "This is the best engineering study that I've seen on this issue. It certainly is groundbreaking in Kentucky."
The details of the settlement are confidential but plaintiffs' attorney Ned Pillersdorf of Prestonsburg did tell Hjalmarson that due to bankruptcies of Miller Brothers and Appalachian "much of the negotiation was done with insurance companies." The case was set to go to trial next Monday, two years after the start of the flood.
Also mentioned in the lawsuit was the state Department for Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement for what the plantiffs criticized as "lax inspections and too many variances given to companies mining in the watershed," Hjalmarson reports. (Read more)
A Virginia engineering firm compared the Quicksand Creek watershed to a predicted watershed if no mining had never been done and "found that peak flows in the creek increased 77 percent to 81 percent during a rain like the soaking that occurred May 8 and 9, 2009," Hjalmarson reports. Jack Spadaro, the plaintiffs' reclamation and hydrology expert and former federal inspector, told Hjalmarson, "This is the best engineering study that I've seen on this issue. It certainly is groundbreaking in Kentucky."
The details of the settlement are confidential but plaintiffs' attorney Ned Pillersdorf of Prestonsburg did tell Hjalmarson that due to bankruptcies of Miller Brothers and Appalachian "much of the negotiation was done with insurance companies." The case was set to go to trial next Monday, two years after the start of the flood.
Also mentioned in the lawsuit was the state Department for Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement for what the plantiffs criticized as "lax inspections and too many variances given to companies mining in the watershed," Hjalmarson reports. (Read more)
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