Which Central Appalachian coal producer was responsible for a spill that dumped 306 million gallons of slurry into tributaries of the Tug Fork River?
Martin County coal slurry spill The Martin County coal slurry spill was an accident that occurred after midnight on October 11, 2000 when the bottom of a coal slurry impoundment owned by Massey Energy in Martin County, Kentucky broke into an abandoned underground mine below. The slurry came out of the mine openings, sending an estimated 306,000,000 gal of slurry down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River. By morning, Wolf Creek was oozing with the black waste; on Coldwater Fork, a 10 ft wide stream became a 100 yd expanse of thick slurry.
Big Ugly Creek Big Ugly Creek is a major tributary of the Guyandotte River in the Harts Creek District of Lincoln County, West Virginia, United States. The naming of this creek was due to 1) an early settler at the mouth of the creek who was unpleasing to the eye; 2) the crooked shape of the creek itself. Big Ugly Creek is a meandering stream stretching nearly 20 miles from Route 119 northeast of Chapmanville in Boone County to where it meets the Guyandotte River at Gill, an extinct railroad town north of Harts in Lincoln County. Big Ugly Creek is also at the southern end of the state's largest mountaintop removal mine, Arch Coal's Hobet 21. The mine stretches nearly 15 miles from near Julian, north of Madison in Boone County to right above the end of Fawn Hollow, which joins Big Ugly, not far from the Big Ugly Community Center.