Yesterday our Yough Riverkeeper Krissy Kasserman and Community Advocate Nick Kennedy attended an Office of Surface Mining inspection of the Curry Mine site. Admittedly, it was raining. That said, during our time on the site we did not see a single erosion and sedimentation control structure. We observed muddy water running everywhere, rutted, muddy roads, and only minimal amounts of vegetation which were doing little to stabilize the site. This inspection was a result of complaints Krissy filed regarding large amounts of sediment-laden water entering the Youghiogheny River downstream of the site
Here’s a bit of the history from an earlier blog post (for more extensive history see here and here):
“OSM has found that the logging on the Curry site is indeed a mining activity and one that is being done to facilitate the mining, so it must be regulated by the DEP Bureau of Mining. This is great news, because when these issues first started to occur in Spring 2013 we alerted several agencies and none were willing to assert jurisdiction over the issues– or take steps to fix them and stop the pollution flowing freely into the Yough. OSM has made clear this is an issue DEP must regulate. If you’d like to see the full determination letter please contact Krissy.”
OSM will likely issue an order to Amerikohl to stabilize the site as a result of the inspection. Stay tuned.