Fish and Wildlife officials relented, and allowed the permit to be issued, when May Associated agreed to not dredge for at least a year. During that year, additional monitoring and studies of dredging will be conducted to determine its potential effects on water quality. Dredging for coal fines from river beds isn t especially common in the Mountain State. But it does happen. At any given time, there are about three dredging operations active in the Kanawha River, according to state records.
Coal blows off barges and railroad cars into the river.
Sometimes, it is spilled into the river. Coal is dredged out of other state waterways as well. The Tug Fork and the Guyandotte have also been dredged. The state makes money off the operations, because the river is owned by the state. In some ways, dredging operations are under-regulated.