West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice is the richest senator in the country, according to recent reporting that also highlights his substantial debts. In light of this news, we thought it appropriate to provide an update on our team’s continued work to deal with the ongoing impacts of his family’s coal empire, and their decades-long track record of environmental destruction.

Black water in Jacob’s Fork – McDowell County, W.Va.

On Sept. 15, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection issued three violations to a coal company owned by Sen. Jim Justice and his adult children. The violations were issued against Mine # 36 for failing to properly maintain a sludge impoundment, allowing mining waste water to spill into a creek, and against the Bishop WV Surface Mine for failing to maintain a sediment containment ditch. The violations occurred in the Jacob’s Fork watershed of McDowell County, West Virginia. Chestnut Land Holdings is majority owned by Justice, with his adult children holding minority shares.

The violations were issued after DEP conducted an investigation into a complaint brought by Jamie Powers, who grew up in the nearby community of Squire, on Sept. 8. Powers had notified the West Virginia DEP of black muck covering the streambed and banks of Jacob’s Fork, which forms in Bishop, Virginia, before crossing the state line and flowing through McDowell County, and into the Dry Fork of the Tug Fork River. The upper reaches of the watershed are pock-mocked by numerous surface and deep mines, as well as a large coal slurry impoundment which straddles the line between McDowell County and Tazewell County, Virginia. Many of these operations, including a large coal slurry impoundment, are operated by various Justice-family owned companies.

“We used to have a real community in Squire,” said Powers in a statement. Powers described public meetings held by the DEP a decade or more ago to hear community concerns over the Justice operations in the area. According to Powers, participation in those meetings was underwhelming as many local residents are struggling with drug addiction, or are too sick and elderly to engage in such meetings.

Powers’ Sept. 8 complaint to the DEP described black water and sludgy black residues in Jacob’s Fork since at least July of this year. 

“The creek is obviously poisoned by the Justice operations,” said Powers. “Just two summers ago, me and my dog were playing in the creek and the water was mostly clear.” 

Now that DEP has issued these violations, Appalachian Voices will work with Powers and other local residents to push for cleanup and compliance to the best of our ability. A cursory review of enforcement documents for the Bishop WV Surface Mine, Big Creek Surface Mine, Red Fox Surface Mine and Mine No. 36 — all Justice operations — found that each one had been cited on Aug. 20, 2025 for lacking valid Clean Water Act permits.

“I’m really sick of them getting away with anything they want,” Powers said. “It’s just the poor living in McDowell County, so they really don’t matter to the coal industry.”

Clark Branch Refuse Impoundment – McDowell County W.Va.

On Sept. 25, the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement issued a Ten Day Notice to the West Virginia DEP, informing the state agency that it and the Justice-owned Second Sterling Corp were both in apparent violation of the law. This came after the federal agency conducted an investigation into information brought forward by an Appalachian Voices complaint. The notice does not qualify as an official citation, but rather as a warning of sorts, and as a directive to DEP to investigate the apparent violations. 

The Appalachian Voices complaint, sent on Sept. 17, cited DEP’s own documents to establish that for over a year, Second Sterling had failed to properly control drainage from its Clark Branch Refuse Impoundment, or completed any reclamation work at the idled site. The complaint also demonstrated that Second Sterling had failed to place signs at points where mining waste water enters into public streams, which is required by law.

When a mining company mishandles a permitted operation in such a way, the state regulator — in this case the West Virginia DEP — is supposed to issue a series of enforcement actions that escalate in severity in order to compel the company to address the problems. Initially, the regulator issues a Notice of Violation, allowing a maximum period of 90 days for the company to abate the violation(s). After this, the regulator issues a Cessation Order, which carries with it an additional maximum 90 day period for abatement. If the company has still failed to correct the underlying violation(s), the regulator will issue a Show Cause Order, affording the company one last chance to address its infraction(s) before losing its mining permit altogether.

In this case though, the DEP failed to follow these procedures by giving Second Sterling more time than is allowed under the law to abate its violations. DEP eventually issued a number of belated Cessation Orders, but never did issue any Show Cause Orders.

At the request of the West Virginia DEP, the Ten Day Notice — so-called because it starts the clock on a 10-day period for DEP to investigate and respond to the claims made in it — has been extended by the OSMRE. DEP now has until Nov. 10 to respond to the notice.

A&G Coal – Wise County, Va.

For more than a decade now, three large mountaintop removal mines have sat mostly idle in the Powell River watershed of Wise County, Virginia. Unreclaimed, massive strip mines of this sort threaten nearby communities with flash floods and mud slides, increased sediment and metals discharging into nearby waterways, and preclude any sort of productive ecological or economic use of the affected land. 

One of the mines — the Looney Ridge Surface Mine — is an eyesore that welcomes visitors to Virginia as they drive over Black Mountain from Kentucky. The Looney Ridge mine is part of a sprawling complex of Justice-family owned surface mines covering thousands of acres, a short distance upstream from the Powell River and the popular Powell River Rail Trail, a gently graded, mostly paved multi-use path that traverses about 2.5 miles through the Jefferson National Forest, linking the towns of Appalachia and Big Stone Gap, Virginia.

These mines are permitted to A&G Coal Company, of which Sen. Justice is the majority owner, according to federal regulatory data. The company is managed by his son, Jay Justice.

In January 2023, Appalachian Voices, the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, and the Sierra Club entered into a settlement agreement with A&G imposing mine reclamation deadlines, and requiring that the company must pay penalties whenever it misses those deadlines or violates other terms of the agreement. These funds are to be transferred to the Upper Tennessee River Roundtable, a local watershed restoration organization.

By the spring of 2025, A&G had violated the settlement by failing to perform the required reclamation and by mining coal, which it is not allowed to do when it falls behind on its environmental cleanup deadlines. In response, our attorneys with Appalachian Mountain Advocates filed a motion to hold the company in contempt of court. A date was set for the contempt hearing on Sept. 4, but this was pushed back and is now expected to occur in November.

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