The Edwight Surface Mine covers 2,016 acres of Cherry Pond Mountain, located across the valley from Coal River Mountain and just south of Massey’s expanding Twilight Surface Mine. The 2.9 billion gallon Shumate sludge impoundment, which sits directly above Marsh Fork Elementary School, is a part of the complex. The communities of Naoma, Pettry Bottom, Peach Tree, Clays Branch and Hazy all lie within a mile of the mine site; blasting occurs within 1,000 feet of homes daily.
Alex Energy has a long record of disregarding worker safety, environmental law and residents' human rights. Cited violations include poor drainage in valley fills, improper disposal of spoil, placing organic material and mud in rock fills, and a myriad of dangerous blasting practices. In 2009, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) issued Edwight a “negative pattern determination” for three blasting violations in one month, including blasting too powerfully near homes and power lines and casting rock, dirt and silica dust clouds outside of the permit boundary. From November 2004 to February 2005, the DEP issued violations for seven instances of blasting after dark, falsifying blasting logs, failure to notify the public of blasting and blasting within 500 feet of active underground mining.
