Opinion ID: 1330380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: When Will We Ever Learn?

Text: Finally, I am reminded of a case in many ways similar to the instant case, whose facts arose in my home county, although the case itself came before the Circuit Court of Kanawha County. In Four-H Road Comm. Assoc. v. Chief, Div. of Water Resources, 177 W.Va. 643, 355 S.E.2d 624 (1987), this Court upheld a favorable mining permit decision by the Surface Mine Board, when a group of citizens, with expert support, had warned that the Omega mine would become a toxic acid mine drainage site for hundreds of years after mining. About five years after this Court's decision, what the citizens predicted turned out to be correct. At the Omega mine, the State of West Virginia is now treating the toxic drainage from the mine, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. We are now adding the T & T mine to the burden of State taxpayers and of coal companies who pay into the reclamation fund. As I stated earlier in this dissent, I read our law as designed to be about requiring accountability for coal mining enterprises. To permit escape from accountability unfairly penalizes responsible businesseshere favoring large irresponsible out-of-state corporate interests over responsible State businesses. As a further result, the public fisc of our State is spent in toxic abatementor alternatively, our communities, streams and mountains are fouled. I understand the majority opinion's approach to the issues in this case, but I disagree with it. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.