[Old School]

Has everyone already forgot about the slurry spill a couple of years ago and what it did to the Big Sandy and Tug Fork? I believe it was officially the 2nd worst environmental disaster in US history. It never got the national attention it deserved because it was in Appalachia.

Sediment ponds and Slurry ponds are two completely different structures, first a sediment pond controls surface water (during a rain/snow event) and varies in size anywhere from one-tenth of acre to generally not more than one-third of a acre, the storage capacity of each sediment pond is designed for the water shed that it will control.

A Slurry pond is a much larger structure that is designed to hold coal fines. The size of Slurry Impoundments vary and are usually based on topography and the companies estimated reserve area. The slurry spill you referred to in Martin County was caused by inaccurate underground mine mapping, the roof of the un-mapped portion of the underground mine below the impoundment collapsed creating a void in the bottom of the slurry impoundment and letting the water to drain into the underground mine and out of the mine portals. Federal law now requires that underground mines maintain a certain distance from impoundments or impoundments cannot be built within a certain distance of underground mine works.

As far as the Martin County spill not getting national attention, I was in Florida the day the of the spill and I heard about it on the radio. Local and network news programs covered this for a long time.