Under the settlement agreement, Consol Energy will spend an estimated $200m in pollution controls that will reduce discharges of harmful mining wastewater into Appalachian streams and rivers.
The company will also build and operate an advanced water treatment plant using reverse osmosis technology near Mannington, West Virginia, to remove high levels of chloride from mining wastewater.
Upon completion, the Appalachia water treatment plant is capable of treating 3,500 gallons of mine water per minute, reducing chloride and other salts in mining waters discharged to streams.
This water treatment is expected to eliminate more than 96 million pounds of total dissolved solids, including more than 11 million pounds of chloride.
The federal government’s complaint filed concurrently with the settlement alleges that six Consol mines violated pollution discharge limits in their Clean Water Act permits hundreds of times over the last four years.
