Hobet Coal Mine
Patriot Coal subsequently went bankrupt in 2015, and the Hobet site was passed into a Virginia-based conservation firm who continued to mine the land while reclaiming and planting trees to offset carbon emissions for other companies.
The mine was a small, family business under its original owners, Fil Nutter and Granville Lee Linville.
Under the ownership of Ashland Oil, a new, more intensive form of mining using a dragline was introduced, which commenced operation in 1983 and doubled production.
Workers objected to the bankrupted Patriot's intentions to sell its assets to Blackhawk Mining, canceling contracts, benefits, and retiree pensions in the process.
[8] The Last Mountain, a 2011 documentary about a neighboring Boone County coal mine, brought the broader area's struggle for environmental justice into the limelight.
The protesters stood up against the environmental degradation taking place through mountaintop removal mining techniques, and were especially angry about effects on the health of nearby human populations.
[4] With an increase in the availability of natural gas (due to hydraulic fracturing technologies), as well a rising use of renewable energy sources, world demand for coal is decreasing.
[12] Patriot Coal, the owner of the mine at the time, announced its bankruptcy in 2012, resulting in the loss of health benefits for the miners.
[4] The company cited competition from natural gas, a weak economy, and regulations as the main factors of their bankruptcy.
The assets and liabilities previously owned by Patriot Coal were taken on by ERP Compliant Fuels, a subsidiary of the Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund.
More than 20 of these valley fills containing high levels of conductivity pollution—in conjunction with deforested mountainsides— contribute to significant toxic runoff, which contaminates the Mud River and its numerous tributaries many miles downstream from the mine site.
[23] Even though the mine is now closed, piles of spoil and valley fills are leaching a large quantity of selenium into the surrounding watershed.
[23] Numerous reclaimed sites are now pastureland, and reforestation is rare due to this liberal interpretation of the law, as well as the fact that true ecological reclamation is very expensive.
Some of the pollutants on the list include: lead, mercury, arsenic, selenium, haloethers, nitrophenols, polychlorinated biphenyls, chlorobenzene, phthalate esters, nitrosamines, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons.
[30] In 2015 the Sierra Club, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy filed a lawsuit against Patriot Coal Corporation, accusing the company of releasing pollutants into water systems in the surrounding area, in particular into the Mud River, which these groups claim has become "biologically impaired" by the Hobet 21 coal mining site.
[14] Additionally, VCLF was granted a 3+1⁄2-year extension on the previously existing deadline to treat selenium water pollution, which was the subject of the 2015 lawsuit brought up against Patriot Coal.
[31] Tomblin named the project Rock Creek Development Park, and announced that the West Virginia National Guard will contribute to it.
The Guard is expected to use the property to maintain national vehicles, train, and invest in agricultural needs such as planting apple trees and constructing greenhouses.
