The Poca Mine – Wyoming County, W.Va.

Since late 2023, Appalachian Voices and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy have been monitoring Bluestone Coal Corporation’s Poca Surface Mine in the Pinnacle Creek area of Wyoming County, West Virginia. The Poca Mine — like many mines permitted to Bluestone and other Justice-family companies — has a long history of environmental noncompliance. Bluestone’s failure to complete reclamation and control sediment and other pollutants entering Pinnacle Creek and its tributaries continue to this day.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection suspended the mine’s permit in January 2025. At that time, the DEP gave Bluestone 10 days to submit a plan to correct the outstanding violations on the mine. Appalachian Voices could not find any such plan using DEP’s online public records database, but the permit appears to have been reinstated, as evidenced by the fact that DEP suspended it a second time in July 2025. Again DEP gave the company 10 days to submit a compliance plan, and again no such plan could be found by Appalachian Voices.

A public hearing regarding the July suspension had been scheduled for Aug. 5 at the DEP’s headquarters in Kanawha City, at the request of Bluestone. In the lead-up to this date, Appalachian Voices issued a press release. We fielded questions from several local and national journalists interested in learning more about the noncompliance that is routine on Justice-family mines, and curious as to whether West Virginia regulators would really bring the hammer down on the law-violating Bluestone Coal Corporation. 

They got their answer on Aug. 4, when DEP notified Appalachian Voices (and we notified the press) that the public hearing had been canceled “due to an abatement agreement.” Appalachian Voices has obtained correspondence between DEP personnel and Bluestone representatives discussing such an agreement, including an Aug. 26 proposal by the company, but we have not confirmed whether a signed compliance plan actually exists at this time. Appalachian Voices has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for any compliance agreements regarding the Poca Mine, but as of now the public remains largely in the dark.

CASG – Wyoming and McDowell counties, W.Va.

The Justice family coal empire is vast, consisting of numerous subsidiary entities, often with very similar names to one another. Be this as it may, our team can spot a Justice company from a mile away. We’re just that deep in the weeds. We recognize the names of dozens of entities that may only hold only one or two permits as being part of the Justice family’s holdings.

So it was a surprise when in early September, we discovered a new-to-us company holding the permit for what had been Bluestone’s large coal processing plant on Pinnacle Creek in Wyoming County. 

This company is called CASG. In January of 2025, this company acquired the Pinnacle Creek prep plant and four other Justice permits, all in McDowell and Wyoming counties, West Virginia. While Bluestone and most other Justice companies are owned in various proportions by Sen. Justice and his adult children, CASG has just one single owner and corporate officer by the name of Catharine Grainger.

Catharine Grainger is Jay Justice’s wife and Sen. Justice’s daughter-in-law. Grainger’s name first appeared in the Applicant Violator System — a federal database that tracks ownership and control of coal companies for enforcement purposes — in December 2023. According to this database, Grainger became the manager and 100% owner of CASG in August 2023, and had never held a position of ownership or control of a coal company previously. Her primary professional experience is as the co-owner of a clothing boutique in Roanoke, Virginia, based on her LinkedIn profile.

Why would Bluestone and the other Justice companies want to transfer permits to a distinct entity that is fully owned and controlled by Catharine Grainger, and that is not — at least on paper — connected to the tangled web of companies owned by the senator and his adult children?

Sometimes, a coal company will separate out its profitable assets from its costly environmental messes, debts to vendors, and obligations to workers in an attempt to salvage some portion of the business before the rest spirals into bankruptcy. We don’t have enough information to say whether that’s what’s happening here, and we will not speculate.