Which Central Appalachian coal producer was responsible for a spill that dumped 306 million gallons of slurry into tributaries of the Tug Fork River?
Massey Energy Massey Energy Company was a coal extractor in the United States with substantial operations in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. By revenue, it was the fourth largest producer of coal in the United States and the largest coal producer in Central Appalachia. By coal production weight, it was the sixth largest producer of coal in the United States.
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.