Pictured in this 2022 aerial photo from Coal River Mountain Watch is what the Raleigh County-based anti-mountaintop removal mining nonprofit says was land disturbance on Lexington Coal Company’s Crescent No. 2 Surface Mine in Boone County.Â
Pictured in this 2022 aerial photo from Coal River Mountain Watch is what the Raleigh County-based anti-mountaintop removal mining nonprofit says was land disturbance on Lexington Coal Company’s Crescent No. 2 Surface Mine in Boone County.Â
A prominent coal company with a long history of environmental violations has a debt of over $1.5 million in delinquent West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection fines.
Milton-based Lexington Coal Company’s total delinquent fine amount was $1,518,109 as of Thursday, according to DEP spokesperson Terry Fletcher.
Violations have lingered unabated on Lexington permits throughout the Coal River watershed amid the towering debt.
A notice of violation on Lexington’s, 1,160-acre, reclamation-only Crescent #2 Surface Mine in Boone County that had been extended five times since it was issued on Dec. 7 was modified into a cessation order Thursday after the company failed to abate it, according to DEP records.
It was the eighth cessation order since July 27, 2023, issued for that mine permit — one of nearly 200 issued DEP mine permits the company holds, per agency records.
Past cessation orders issued to Lexington have followed failures to submit surface water monitoring analyses and maintain sediment control structures that resulted in damaged and washed-out barriers.
The DEP may issue cessation orders for a surface mine operation — mandating stoppage of an operation or portion of an operation — if it finds the operation creates an imminent danger to public health or safety or can be reasonably expected to cause significant imminent environmental harm. The DEP issued the violation for what it says was Lexington’s failure to submit an annual permanent drainage certification. The agency said Lexington is to provide annual certification of drainage and sediment control structures.
Thursday’s cessation order came a day after Vernon Haltom, executive director of Raleigh County-based environmental group Coal River Mountain Watch, noted the permit violation notice had been extended for nearly five months in an email to DEP officials.
Permit was renewed despite string of delinquent penalties
The DEP renewed the permit on Jan. 12 despite issuing the company 35 letters demanding payment of delinquent civil penalties totaling $420,528 across 31 permits just three days earlier.
In its letters, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection warned the Lexington Coal Co. that the agency is barred under a state rule from issuing any permit or permit revision to the company as long as any civil penalty remains delinquent.
In January, when asked for an explanation of the decision to issue the company a permit renewal anyway, Fletcher, the DEP spokesman, said a permit renewal isn’t the issuance of a new permit or a significant revision to an existing permit.
DEP officials contended during a Dec. 14 virtual meeting on the permit renewal application they have little statutory recourse to deny Lexington’s request, despite the long string of penalties on the permit.
The permit renewal drew the ire of environmental and community advocates who say the move is evidence of a toothless DEP.
Advocates also condemned a DEP extension of a violation notice issued to Lexington Coal Company for failure to reclaim highwall at its Twilight MTR Surface Mine in Raleigh and Boone counties 25 times from August 2021 to August 2023.
The DEP said in an August 2023 letter to the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement’s ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä field office the extension had been “erroneously granted†and wasn’t in accordance with DEP Division of Mining and Reclamation policies.
That admission came after the OSMRE told the DEP in a letter a federal inspection would occur and “appropriate enforcement action†would be taken if the latter agency didn’t act to cause the violation to be corrected. The OSMRE notice was prompted by a request from environmental groups that the OSMRE review the DEP’s oversight.
A ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä resident complaint to the DEP filed Wednesday requested a DEP Division of Mining and Reclamation inspection of a Lexington’s reclamation-only, 256-acre Fourmile N Surface Mine in Fayette County said Lexington “left things in a mess,†causing highwall and reclamation issues with no security.
“[A] kid nearly got hurt there yesterday,†the complaint states.
The Fourmile N Surface Mine permit has drawn 17 notices of violation and nine cessation orders since the start of 2019, according to DEP records, including for sediment control and water quality monitoring failures.
The West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office lists Lexington’s manager as Jeremy Hoops, son of Jeff Hoops, who stepped down as CEO of mining companies Blackjewel and Revelation Energy as part of a 2019 bankruptcy deal.
In January, the U.S. Department of Labor announced it reached a settlement agreement to resolve over $1.2 million in unpaid medical claims by the Milton-based health care plan for Revelation Energy LLC, another mining company which Hoops stepped down as CEO from as part of the 2019 bankruptcy deal.
The DOL also announced it obtained a consent judgment and order in a West Virginia federal court requiring trustees of Blackjewel’s 401(k) plan to pay $637,014 in restitution. The order followed a federal investigation finding that Hoops and others who had been Blackjewel executives unlawfully diverted employee retirement contributions to pay for company expenses.
Officials at Lexington could not be reached for comment.
