CLEAR December 2009

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Keith Pitzer's progress will live on
by Duane330＠aol.com 23 Dec '09

23 Dec '09

Friends of the Cheat mourns the passing of Keith Pitzer Keith Pitzer, executive director of Friends of the Cheat since 2001, died on the morning of December 22nd following a year and a half long battle with cancer. Under his leadership, Friends of the Cheat dramatically expanded its efforts to restore, preserve, and promote the outstanding natural qualities of the Cheat River Watershed. Key milestones under the Pitzer tenure include establishing three public river accesses, completing an interpretive driving trail, invasive species eradication, and a major expansion of the organization's primary focus, cleaning up acid mine drainage that has rendered many miles of streams in the watershed unable to support life for decades. Today the Cheat River, once considered dead below Albright, is making a comeback. The water is visibly cleaner, and fish, eagles, herons, and otters have been sighted, although much work remains to further improve water quality in the river and tributaries. Keith also laid the foundation for ongoing projects including developing rail trails in the Kingwood area and from Albright to Rowlesburg, building an outdoor classroom, developing a key river and trail access at the confluence of Pringle Run and the Cheat River, and many additional acid mine drainage remediation projects throughout the lower Cheat watershed. Despite his deteriorating health, Keith remained actively involved in leading Friends of the Cheat through mid-November of this year. On December 1st, co-founder and past president and executive director Dave Bassage was named interim director to keep the organization and small staff moving smoothly forward. Bassage notes: "Keith was a close friend for twenty years, and I will sorely miss him, but savor many fond memories. He was a kind, committed, gentle man, with a talent for music and leadership, putting all who knew him at ease. The world deserved more of Keith than he was able to give. His dreams, his passions, and most of all the patience, persistence, and respect he embodied so well will continue on in those of us fortunate enough to have been touched by him." An accomplished musician and songwriter, Keith and his wife Joan recorded albums and played at festivals and other venues throughout the East Coast. They were instrumental in establishing fine music tradition of the annual Cheat River Festival, the region's first outdoor festival each year, held the first weekend in May. In lieu of flowers, The Keith Pitzer family has asked that donations be made in his memory to Friends of the Cheat, website www.cheat.org. Condolence notes can be sent to his email: _KPitzer(a)cheat.org_ (mailto:KPitzer@cheat.org) , and will be passed along to his family. A memorial service is being planned for the springtime. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> See also the front page of today's Morgantown Dominion Post.

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The Dunkard story from WV-DEP
by duane330＠aol.com 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

Dunkard Creek Residents Blame Agencies for September Fish Kill Posted Friday, December 4, 2009 ; 01:21 PM, Updated Friday, December 4, 2009; 05:00 PM Patrick Campbell, assistant director of WVDEP’s Division of Water and Waste Management Photo Credit: Pam Kasey Officials conducted a meeting Dec. 3 in Pennsylvania. Story by Pam Kasey Story by Pam Kasey MOUNT MORRIS, Pa. -- West Virginia and Pennsylvania residents of the Dunkard Creek watershed took environmental officials to task at a Dec. 3 community meeting about the death this fall of the creek’s fish and mussels. The kill on Dunkard Creek, an active smallmouth bass and musky fishery and the most diverse breeding ground for mussels in the Monongahela River drainage, first was reported to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection on Sept. 1. By the end of September, as many as 22,000 fish and all of the mussels were dead on about 30 miles of the West Virginia Fork and the mainstem of the creek, according to a preliminary estimate from the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. A bloom of golden algae, Prymnesium parvum, unknown in this region before September, has been identified as the secondary cause of the kill. The primary cause, agency investigators and university researchers generally agree, was saline conditions from natural resource extraction. Coal and coalbed methane operations in the watershed produce water high in salts, known in water quality lingo as Total Dissolved Solids. Because producers move their salty waste water from one location to another in the watershed for partial treatment and for disposal, it has been difficult to pinpoint the exact cause. Resident Frustration Participants in the Dec. 3 meeting identified lax environmental enforcement as the cause. Some questioned why the federal Environmental Protection Agency permitted CNX Gas to inject brine into a mine void that may be connected hydrologically with other abandoned mines. Others pointed to WVDEP’s consent order allowing CONSOL Energy to discharge water high in chlorides through Sept. 2013. Chlorides are one component of TDS, and removing them is expensive. “Is it safe to say that that was a mistake, and wouldn’t you say that that decision actually sealed the fate of Dunkard Creek?” a meeting participant asked Patrick Campbell, assistant director of WVDEP’s Division of Water and Waste Management. DEP decided to overlook the fact that the creek’s streambed organisms were suffering under the high-chloride discharge, Campbell said, because the fishery seemed to be surviving. “The golden algae was the kicker,” he said. “If treatment had been installed a long time ago, this may not have happened, but the agency was trying to let the situation play out with the opportunities that were available to the company. … Nobody ever could have imagined what could have happened.” More Blooms Likely Without Protection Golden algae typically are found in naturally salty coastal and southern waters. Dunkard Creek was the first place they were identified in the Mid-Atlantic region. The algae are not always deadly. But when they outgrow their food supply, they secrete toxins that kill gill-breathing organisms. Once present in a watershed, the algae are difficult if not impossible to eradicate, biologists say. At the same time, they may easily be spread to other locations by wildlife, recreationists, industrial users and others. And since September, WVDEP has found golden algae in five other especially salty streams across the state: three in the Monongahela River basin, one in the northern panhandle and one near Charleston. “It’s a huge threat,” said Margaret Janes of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, who is following the issue closely, “both because it can kill everything in the stream and because it’s likely to recur over years and years and likely to expand throughout central Appalachia.” A bill that failed in the state Legislature last March would have required the state DEP to establish a water quality standard for TDS at or below Pennsylvania’s standard of 500 milligrams/liter — a level surpassed many times over during the fish kill. Legislators are considering reintroducing the bill but making it specific to the Monongahela River watershed. Janes would like to see it passed for the entire state. “I don’t think legislators can cherry-pick which streams they’re going to protect,” she said. Next Step for Dunkard? Meanwhile, the situation on Dunkard Creek is reaching a critical point. CONSOL discontinued pumping salty water from its active Blacksville #2 mine on Sept. 17, during the fish kill. Three months later, the mine is filling up. “We’ve got 500 people underground,” said Jonathan Pachter of CONSOL. “We need to keep the mine safe. At some point in time soon we’re going to have to figure out what to do.” DEP still is considering waiting for Sept. 2013 for a long-term strategy, according to Campbell, and is making no requirement of CONSOL in the short-term. “I think the company is evaluating lots of options: Can they move the water somewhere else, augment flow — how can they take steps themselves to reduce TDS?” he said. Asked whether WVDEP has the authority to rescind the consent decree and require CONSOL to treat its discharge to the state’s existing water quality standard for chlorides, Campbell indicated that he considered that futile. “The authority would be there. The ability to appeal that decision is also there,” he said. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> See also: www.wvdep.org, and under "offices" choose, Division of Water and Waste Management.

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Open Letter to WV-DEP
by Duane330＠aol.com 08 Dec '09

08 Dec '09

CHEAT LAKE ENVIRONMENT & RECREATION ASSOCIATION Open Letter To WV-DEP WV Department of Environmental Protection Charleston, West Virginia RE: Dunkard Creek and the Monongahela River. Date: December 8, 2009 The West Virginia Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on State Water Resources met on Thursday, October 15 to examine the fish kill in Dunkard Creek. The meeting took place at the State Capitol, and was open to the public. Presentations were made by Scott Mandirola, WV-DEP, Frank Jernejcic, WV-DNR. and this writer (Duane Nichols) on behalf of the Upper Monongahela River Association (UMRA). The Upper Mon River Association has conducted 12 monthly Water Quality Forums at the Morgantown Airport in Monongalia County since November of 2008. The primary impetus was originally the high TDS and low flows in the Monongahela River most noticeable in August of 2008. Since that time, problems of high TDS have continued in the Mon River and in a number of its tributaries. WV and Pennsylvania state and federal representatives have participated in these Forums on a regular basis. Strong sentiment has been expressed over the problems of TDS and other ions in the streams of our State. On November 12th, a joint meeting involving the WV Sierra Club and the Dunkard Creek Watershed Association was held at West Virginia University. Over 60 people attended who support limits on TDS in the local streams, the regulation of water withdraws for whatever purpose, and the strict enforcement of water quality and stream maintenance regulations. On December 3rd, the Water Quality Forum at Mt. Morris in Pennsylvania involved over 200 people meeting specifically on Dunkard Creek. Here it was clearly revealed that urgent action is needed to protect this and the other streams of the region, to limit water withdraws, and to enforce the state and federal regulation of all these streams. The lack of adequate legal protection, the lack of adequate enforcement of existing regulations, and the lack of adequate plans for the immediate future were quite evident. It was shocking to learn that the WV-DEP has no plans for any action as a result of this huge kill of aquatic life. The need now exists to establish water quality standards for all the streams of WV, given that the recent fish kill on Dunkard Creek was so devastating. This was initially a crisis situation that became a disaster. Approximately 22,000 fish, plus 14 species of mussels, and other creatures are dead and no one knows how to regenerate the stream. The conditions on Dunkard Creek could be repeated on more than 20 other streams throughout West Virginia. A water quality standard of 500 parts per million, for example, would meet national drinking water standards, and this may be sufficiently low as to remove threats of a golden algae bloom, according to the information currently available. Some of us believe that 250 ppm would be more realistic, to provide adequate protection for aquatic life and for household uses of the water year round. The WV-DEP web-site has been inadequate as a response to the problems of high TDS and the golden algae. Most of the postings that have been provided were undated, so the public could not readily determine the significance of a given posting. Also, not much of the actual data has been posted; some data has been posted but it has not been easy to find and has always been late in appearing. Further, WV-DEP has been meeting with representatives of the polluters on a regular basis, but has not once called in members of the public who are directly affected or members of the environmental groups who know about and care about these problems. Thus, there is a big question as to “who” the WV-DEP is really serving in this and other issues before the State. The importance of the Monongahela River cannot be overemphasized, given its substantial role for public water supplies, industrial water supplies and recreational activities. The high TDS values experienced by the Morgantown Utility Board during the past two summers results in problems for each household with foul taste, hard water for washing activities, and the clogging of values and pipes. The problems of TDS in the cooling water of the numerous power plants results in violations of air emission permits for cooling towers as well as the accumulation of salt solids within evaporative cooling towers. It is now time, now finally is the time to do something. Something must be done about these problems. The WV-DEP has been studying these problem long enough. On behalf of the citizens of West Virginia, on behalf of all the water users of our State, I call upon the WV-DEP to immediately develop a slate of solutions to the problems at hand, rank these options and publish them. Then, the public, the Legislature and the Governor can work to adopt a set of solutions that will represent our best effort to recover from these problems in our rivers and other streams. Sincerely submitted, Duane G. Nichols Duane G. Nichols, Ph.D. Chemical Engineer President, Cheat Lake Environment & Recreation Association 330 Dream Catcher Circle Morgantown, WV 26508

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CLEAR December 2009