Martin County Kentucky is no stranger to the dangers posed by coal slurry dams. In 2000, a slurry dam broke inundating two forks of the Tug River with over 300 million gallons of toxic sludge. This spill as thirty times the size of the Exxon Valdez Spill, and was called one of the worst environmental disasters to occur in the Southeast by the EPA.

Early Tuesday morning, Martin County Coal Company reported to the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection that a spill had occurred in Coldwater Creek. An unknown amount of slurry has leached into the creek, and clean up crews are working to contain the spill. Water levels have not risen, but Martin County resident Mickey McCoy said ” we just got a mainline injection of toxic heavy metals into our creek”.