Camp Creek faces water runoff issue

The Harlan County Fiscal Court addressed an ongoing issue regarding water runoff near a defunct mining site in the Camp Creek area near the Coldiron community during their regular August meeting.
Harlan County Judge-Executive Dan Mosley brought the matter to the court’s attention early in the meeting.
“(Magistrate) James Howard and I have become very familiar with Camp Creek over the course of our tenure in county government,” Mosley said. “I would not be speculating when I say in any heavy rain event – not every heavy rain event but those that are outside the norm – we have replaced more tiles on Camp Creek and Wallins Creek than we have on any county road in Harlan County combined over the last 10 years.”
Mosley explained the heavy water runoff is a direct result of a company’s failure to reclaim a former coal site at Coldiron.
“We have repeatedly had state officials there through OSM (Office of Surface Mining Reclamation), AML (Division of Abandoned Mine Land) and others, and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet as well,” Mosley said. “It has become a situation that is very unfair to the citizens that live on that particular section of road. There’s also been additional effects to the people at Molus, the people at Happy Top who have also experienced issues from the same watershed coming from this particular property. Of course, there has not been mining there in years, however they’ve just failed to reclaim and unfortunately there’s not been proper enforcement on the matter.”
Mosley said violation notices have been written concerning the property.
“However, there been no attempts to rectify the situation,” Mosley said. “Most recently, we had AML (Division of Abandoned Mine Lands) on site to evaluate again. Their hands are tied due to there still being a permit outstanding and reclamation needed, so it falls under a different agency.”
Mosley noted meetings with agency heads will be set up in the near future to address the issue.
“I’ve spoken to Representative (Adam) Bowling – that’s in his district – about the matter as well and I intend to speak to Senator (Johnnie) Turner soon,” Mosley said. “We’ve got a bit AML project getting ready to start in Wallins that we’re very excited about, and I know our friends at AML want to help, but their hands are tied because of an agency across the hall that is required to enforce it.”
According to Mosley, the situation leads to an excessive amount of water coming off the site during heavy rain.
“If you saw the video of water coming out of there, you know that’s not typical of a situation that just involves a heavy rain event,” Mosley said. “We need some solutions. The people who live on Camp Creek especially deserve solutions.”
Mosley mentioned the situation caused expense to the county when tiles have to be replaced due to the issue.
“I feel bad for those people who have been inconvenienced,” Mosley said. “It’s impacted them multiple times. The water line has been washed out of the ground; they’ve had to go without water at different times for a couple of days because of that. In fact, at one point it washed out…and froze up, they went without water for five or six days.”
Magistrate James Howard mentioned a remedy has been sought for some time.
“Hopefully we can get some solutions,” Mosley said.

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