🚨🚨 Rapid Response Legal Fund: Your gift matched $1-for-$1 Donate
🚨🚨 Rapid Response Legal Fund: Your gift matched $1-for-$1
Our Stories
Looking Back at the Coal Tragedy At Buffalo Creek
Forty-one years ago, today, a dam holding 132 million gallons of toxic liquid coal waste ruptured high up in the mountains of West Virginia, loosing a tsunami-like death wave of coal waste and chemical sludge that destroyed 4,000 homes in 16 towns, injured more than 1,000 people, and killed 125. Seven bodies were never found.
By Liz Judge / Policy and Legislation Team & Washington, D.C. Office
This page was published 11 years ago. Find the latest on Earthjustice’s work.
Forty-one years ago, today, a dam holding 132 million gallons of toxic liquid coal waste ruptured high up in the mountains of West Virginia, loosing a tsunami-like death wave of coal waste and chemical sludge that destroyed 4,000 homes in 16 towns, injured more than 1,000 people, and killed 125. Seven bodies were never found. A remarkable Charleston Gazette series shares the stories of the people who were affected by this horrific tragedy.
The Buffalo Creek disaster was one of the deadliest floods in American history, but unlike natural floods, it was a man-made disaster caused by corporate negligence, regulatory agency corruption and failure, and an ill-begotten idea of industrial waste disposal. Today, many of the circumstances that led to that disaster still persist, but sludge dams are several times larger.
After they mine the coal, coal companies still wash the coal with a chemical cocktail before shipping it off to the power plants; but with the advent of mountaintop removal mining, the scale of the mining operations has exponentially increased. Now, many of these impoundments, or dams, hold hundreds of billions of gallons of sludge as opposed to hundreds of millions. And they are still earthen, unlined and susceptible to leaching into groundwater supplies and to failure from heavy rains. The Sludge Safety Project has much more information on the safety threats and problems we face today.
In 2000, coal slurry flowed from the Martin County mine, threatening homes and the environment. (KY Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet)
There are hundreds of these coal sludge dams across the country; West Virginia has 110 of them. The coal industry claims they are failproof and safe, but numerous records of failures and countless records of leachings tell us otherwise. In 2000, a sludge dam failed in Martin County, KY, wreaking destruction on the town of Inez, which still is suffering from the toxic fallout from the spill. Mountain Hero Mickey McCoy tells the story of that historic disaster.
Last November, a coal mine worker was killed when the wall of a sludge dam gave out and he and his bulldozer were swept into the dam.
These stories are tragic, but this is a problem we can fix. We can demand safer dams and better enforcement of the laws, and we can demand stronger action to protect workers, downstream communities, and the waters upon which communities rely. Get involved with the Sludge Safety Project and take action now to tell the Obama administration to put a moratorium on faulty coal waste dam construction.
Liz Judge worked at Earthjustice from 2010–2016. During that time, she worked on mountaintop removal mining, national forests, and clean water issues, and led the media and advocacy communications teams.
Policy and Legislation Team
Established in 1989, Earthjustice's Policy & Legislation team works with champions in Congress to craft legislation that supports and extends our legal gains.
Washington, D.C. Office
Earthjustice’s Washington, D.C., office works at the federal level to prevent air and water pollution, combat climate change, and protect natural areas. We also work with communities in the Mid-Atlantic region and elsewhere to address severe local environmental health problems, including exposures to dangerous air contaminants in toxic hot spots, sewage backups and overflows, chemical disasters, and contamination of drinking water. The D.C. office has been in operation since 1978.
“Our nation has some of the greatest environmental laws in the world — but they are only as good as their enforcement. Otherwise, they are just words on paper.”
The Stories to read on Clean Energy
- There’s Still Hope on Climate
- Trump Está Más Preparado Esta Vez. Nosotros También.
- Take Action Speak up to defend our climate
What you need to know this week
- We’ve stopped the Trump administration before. And we’ll do it again.
- 2024 Elections: A Voting Guide
- The Long Shadow of Drax, a Power Company Masquerading as Green