Coal and Corruption: Business as usual in Kentucky
This is a bit dated (by a few weeks) but I'd like to keep folks informed on happenings in Appalachia.
State lawmaker holds permit for coal mines with 'pattern of violations'
From the Lexington Herald-Leader
Published: June 9, 2013
Permits are in name of Hall's company
By John Cheves — jcheves@herald-leader.com
FRANKFORT — State Rep. Keith Hall, chairman of the House committee on energy, holds the permits for Pike County coal mines with a repetitive pattern of safety and environmental violations, according to state officials.
Since 2010, state inspectors have cited Hall's Beech Creek Coal Co. and other companies mining coal on his permits for dropping rocks on homes; mining outside of permitted areas; water pollution; failing to obey regulations on blasting, reclamation and maintaining slurry ponds; and allowing rocks, dirt and trees to slide down slopes.
"It's a danger to everybody out here, I think. Every time you hear the blast, you wonder if something's about to come down on you," said Barbara Eldridge of the Phelps community.
Eldridge lives next to the largest of Beech Creek Coal's three surface mines near Phelps in sparsely populated eastern Pike County. That mine has produced more than 410,000 tons of coal in three years and, at its busiest, has employed 40 people. A year ago, a jagged slab of rock the size of a truck tire traveled 613 feet down from the mine and slammed into Eldridge's home, denting a wall and shattering a paved walkway.
Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/06/09/2671688/state-lawmaker-holds-permit-for.html#storylink=cpy