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.
Kentucky Dam Kentucky Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River on the county line between Livingston and Marshall counties in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The dam is the lowermost of nine dams on the river owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the late 1930s and early 1940s to improve navigation on the lower part of the river and reduce flooding on the lower Ohio and Mississippi rivers. It was a major project initiated during the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, to invest in infrastructure to benefit the country. The dam impounds the Kentucky Lake of 160000 acre , which is the largest of TVA's reservoirs and the largest artificial lake by area in the Eastern United States.