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Clintwood JOD cited for black water spill upstream of Fishtrap Lake in Pike County, Kentucky

Fishtrap Lake provides drinking water for Pikeville. Company fined $9,800

Clintwood JOD sediment pond that is full of mining waste, making it unable to properly catch sediment, resulting in black water entering Big Creek and the Levisa Fork. Photo courtesy of Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet.

Clintwood JOD sediment pond that is full of mining waste, making it unable to properly catch sediment, resulting in black water entering Big Creek and the Levisa Fork. Photo courtesy of Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet.
Clintwood JOD sediment pond that is full of mining waste, making it unable to properly catch sediment, resulting in black water entering Big Creek and the Levisa Fork. Photo courtesy of Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet.

Clintwood JOD, a coal mining company operating in Kentucky and Virginia, has been cited by Kentucky regulators for releasing polluted, black water into Big Creek and the Levisa Fork from coal mines in Pike County. The black water releases occurred at a preparation plant and associated surface mine operations on the North Fork of Big Creek, a short distance upstream of Fishtrap Lake State Park, a popular local and regional destination for fishing, boating, and swimming, and Fishtrap Lake, which provides drinking water for the city of Pikeville. Altogether, the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet issued four citations against the facilities throughout October, November and December of 2024.

On Nov. 17, Appalachian Voices was made aware of the black water on Facebook by one of our members. Upon receiving this notice, our Coal Impacts Team contacted the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet and filed a complaint, sharing photos and information detailed in Facebook posts by Pike County residents. 

On Jan. 21, the EEC finally provided us with documentation of their investigation into the black water spills. This material detailed an investigation of the Big Creek mining operations that took place on Nov. 26. According to an investigation report prepared by Joshua George of the Kentucky Division of Water, sediment control ponds at the Clintwood JOD facilities were full of sediment. 

The report stated:

This has greatly decreased the storage capacity of the ponds as well as retention and decreased the ponds’ ability to settle out solids. No chemical treatment was provided in the ponds and no curtains or other mechanical treatment was used. The facility was attempting to use pumps to pump water to uphill ponds to prevent discharge and increase retention time. This method, however, did not appear to be effective. Straw bales had been placed at the pond outfalls to attempt to catch solids. The ponds were extremely full and may possibly discharge over the sides if the area experiences heavy precipitation. The outfalls and receiving stream, Big Creek, were stained black and had black deposits.

The Clintwood JOD mining complex has a history of black water releases, brought to the attention of regulators by citizen complaints. George’s report, and other government documents, describe violations issued against the company on Oct. 9, 2024, and Nov. 20, 2024. The state’s Surface Mining Information System, an online regulatory database, lists additional violations of effluent and water quality standards at the Big Creek operations issued on Dec. 9 and 11, 2024.

According to EEC documents, as of the publication of this blog, the company has now addressed these violations. Clintwood JOD was fined a total of $9,800, well below the maximum allowable fine of $25,000 per violation each day.

“Noncompliance issues that directly impact human health through drinking water should be held to the highest level of environmental enforcement through the regulatory authority within the EEC,” said Lesley Sneed, Environmental Permitting Specialist for Kentucky Resources Council, an environmental nonprofit. “Weak enforcement through negligible fines by the EEC leads to the fundamental failure of environmental law which should, at its bare minimum, protect human health.”

Clintwood JOD is a company that Appalachian Voices knows well. For years, community members along Knox Creek and its tributaries in Buchanan County, Virginia have complained of dust in their communities caused by Clintwood JOD surface mines and the trucks hauling coal off of them. 

The company has also released toxic levels of selenium into tributaries of Knox Creek for years. Rather than compel the company to control this pollution, Virginia regulators recently approved more lenient selenium requirements applicable only to Knox Creek, at Clintwood JOD’s request. (You read that right. Selenium pollution is regulated one way for the stretch of Knox Creek where Clintwood JOD operates, and another way for the entire rest of the state of Virginia.)

The previous company operating both the Big Creek mines and the mines in Hurley was a subsidiary of Cambrian Coal called Clintwood Elkhorn. When Cambrian declared bankruptcy in 2019, Clintwood JOD was formed by existing Cambrian officers, acquiring many of Clintwood Elkhorn’s operations. According to LinkedIn pages, Chris Stanley, the former director of Engineering and Permitting for Clintwood Elkhorn, is now Clintwood JOD’s general manager. J Chris Adkins is currently the CEO of Clintwood JOD, while remaining the chief operating officer of Cambrian Coal.

Adkins was also the longtime chief operating officer for Massey Energy during a tenure that saw numerous environmental and mine safety disasters. In 2000, a Massey Energy coal sludge impoundment failed in Martin County, Kentucky, sending over 300 million gallons of toxic waste into the Tug Fork River. In 2006, a fire at Massey’s Aracoma mine in Logan County, West Virginia, killed two miners due to what federal investigators called “reckless disregard” for safety. In 2010, 29 men died from an explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia. An independent investigation of the explosion, commissioned by then-West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, harshly criticized the operational norms overseen by Chris Adkins and Massey CEO Don Blankenship, stating: 

Such total and catastrophic systemic failures can only be explained in the context of a culture in which wrongdoing became acceptable, where deviation became the norm. In such a culture it was acceptable to mine coal with insufficient air; with buildups of coal dust; with inadequate rock dust … And it became acceptable to cast agencies designed to protect miners as enemies and to make life difficult for miners who tried to address safety. It is only in the context of a culture bent on production at the expense of safety that these obvious deviations from decades of known safety practices make sense. 

Also in 2010, Massey voluntarily closed its Freedom Mine in Sidney, Kentucky, after the Department of Labor sought a federal injunction to close the mine due to safety conditions that consistently posed a high risk for fatal accidents. 

When Adkins left Massey in 2011, he received $11 million in severance and other forms of compensation. (Let’s review. Pollute the drinking water source for the city of Pikeville? That’ll cost you $9,800. Leave a company in disgrace after a series of disasters culminating with an explosion that killed 29 people? You just may walk away with $11 million.)

Unfortunately, the black water that discharged from Clintwood JOD’s Big Creek facility and made its way into Fishtrap Lake suggests that Adkins’ decades-long pattern of noncompliance persists to this day.

If you see water pollution caused by coal mining in your area, you can always contact Appalachian Voices for assistance investigating the issue and seeking to compel enforcement. Our Coal Impacts team is small, and our capacity is limited, but we will do whatever we can to address the environmental and community impacts of coal companies like Clintwood JOD. We will never share anyone’s name or other identifying information without their permission.

Willie Dodson

A Virginia native, Willie has organized with environmental and social justice campaigns in the region for more than a decade. He is Appalachian Voices' Coal Impacts Program Manager.

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2 Comments

  1. Hugh Sylvia on February 13, 2025 at 1:43 pm

    Very disturbing article ; however nothing was mentioned about the pollution of Pikeville’s drinking water supply ! What has been done to protect all our residents health ; IF ANYTHING?



  2. Steven Slone on February 7, 2025 at 8:54 pm

    I have seen this many times on Johnscreek and you wonder way the crawdads are gone, this is nothing new. Its gone on for years.



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