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Friday, October 10, 2014

West Virginia lab official pleads guilty to faking coal water quality reports

A West Virginia man who worked as a field technician then a field supervisor for Appalachian Laboratories Inc., "pleaded guilty Thursday to repeatedly faking compliant water quality standards for coal companies, in a case that raises questions about the self-reporting system state and federal regulators use as a central tool to judge if the mining industry is following pollution limits," Ken Ward reports for the Charleston Gazette.

John W. Shelton "admitted to a charge of conspiracy to violate the federal Clean Water Act, saying he diluted water samples, substituted water he knew to be clean for actual mining discharges and did not keep water samples refrigerated, as required by state and federal rules, court records show," Ward writes. Appalachian Laboratories "was certified by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to sample and analyze water discharges from mining operations as part of the Clean Water Act program."

"In an agreed-to 'stipulation of facts' filed in court Thursday, prosecutors and Shelton said that, throughout his time with the company, another Appalachian Laboratories official stressed to him the importance of 'pulling good samples,' a term that was understood to mean samples that would comply with permit limits, not necessarily samples that were taken properly," Ward writes. "Shelton and other Appalachian employees “falsified and rendered inaccurate” water samples by diluting them with distilled water or replacing them with water they knew to be in compliance with permit standards, according to the stipulation." (Read more)

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