Comment 9/30/25 To Protect 3 Square Miles Of Forest, 3 Miles Of Streams, And Keep 56 Million Tons Of Coal In The Ground
Sep 29, 2025
"The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Mining and Reclamation (DMR) is hosting a virtual informal conference on Tuesday, September 30, 2025, at 5:30 p.m. on Renewal Application No. 3 for Permit No. S502808 held by Lexington Coal Company, LLC. The conference can be accessed at the following link: https://meet.google.
If you'd like to sign on to our comments and add some of your own, please do so by 5 PM at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-1X9NFENOt5SIwyrXmjypgysQICKid4HWWmmoDPXtfzX9aA/viewform?pli=1. 
Here's a YouTube of a flyover (courtesy Southwings) of the permit (S502808) and the adjacent permit (S502007). The "disturbed" area is on the adjacent permit and includes a violation for timbering in the "buffer zone" of the stream. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv_uZmwVgw8 We have several reasons to object to this permit, some of which follow and some of which may be further elaborated during the informal conference:
-Lexington has repeatedly demonstrated their inability or unwillingness to comply with the law on this permit, adjacent permits, and across their holdings.
--Adjacent permit S502007 presently has four unabated notices of violation for a variety of infractions, with $189,000 in delinquent penalties.
--Nearby permit S500398 has six unabated violations, with $136,000 in delinquent penalties.
--Nearby permit S502408 has one unabated violation, with $36,000 in delinquent penalties.
--Nearby permit S502396 has four unabated violations, with $65,000 in delinquent penalties.
--Nearby permit U001383 was suspended on March 27, 2025, has two new violations written May 9 and June 24, 2025, as well as two unabated Cessation Orders for violations cited Oct. 16, 2024.
--Lexington owes over $3 million in delinquent civil penalties for their many, many violations. A payment agreement entered into in May, 2024 to cover the delinquencies is itself now delinquent, with Lexington having made only the initial payment and then failing to make the required monthly payments.
--Lexington's flouting of safety regulations led to a fatality at adjacent permit S502007.
--Threats to take further action, civil penalties, cessation orders, and suspension of permits not removing coal have no effect on Lexington's compliance. Only permit denial, revocation, and bond forfeiture will make a difference.
-Permit S502808 should rightly be revoked instead of renewed. This permit should be "not started," but somehow gained "active, no coal removed" by detonating 5 pounds of explosives at some point in the past. A permit not started within three years of issuance shall terminate. This permit was issued in 2010 and expired 3/25/25.
-Lexington estimates that it will extract more than 56 million tons of coal from this permit. This carbon will contribute to the heating of the climate, and the resulting droughts, heat waves, hurricanes, floods etc associated with it. While some may deny the science, their opinions do not mitigate the reality.
-Blasting on this permit will endanger the health and lives of people for many miles. And since you have consistently claimed WVDEP has no scientists qualified to determine if the permit will harm human health, you have no business granting a renewal of this permit.
-Lexington will, if allowed to keep this permit, eventually run up a stack of violations.
-Granting a renewal of permit S502808, when WVDEP has every legal right and justification to deny it, would only tell Lexington that WVDEP has no intention of effective enforcement.
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