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Now I find it needful to outline one key element in the disaster recipe. Lorado Mining Company submitted
a proposed plan to build these sediment pond sites. And either no exact engineered plan was submitted or made, or, the government
agencies responsible for the approval never looked to closely at the proposed construction plans.When the construction for
these dams began, they were constructed by taking mine refuse up to a certain point in the hollow and the truck drivers would
simply back their laden trucks up and dump. A dozer operator would begin to level out the refuse across the hollow, from one
side of the mountain to the other.
According to eyewitness and employee accounts, no worker on either of the three dams had ever been
shown any type of construction plans. Nor were they ever trained by certified hydrological engineers on site construction.
No one came by and inspected the work. No one surveyed the hollow for any type of ground stability in water retention. Lorado
Mining had one type of construction in mind from day one, simply dump coal refuse across the hollow and hold back waste water
and hope for the best.So what was the total construction cost for this plan? Actually no more than what it cost the company
to mail a letter to Charleston and pay truck drivers and dozer operators to do their normal every day job. Actually, no one
ever thought of the massive catastrophe that they had began to build.
In November of 1963, Lorado Mining shut down its mine #5 operations along with the preparation plant.
All mine activities were idle until one year latter when the site was re-opened in October 1964 under the new name of Buffalo
Creek Mining Company.
The preparation plant began the same job that it was designed to do, to process mined coal. It again began to use nearly 500,00
gallons of water daily, to clean the coal that was being mined.
When coal is mined, nearly one-fourth of the mined material brought to the surface is useless waste
which consist of slate, rock and low grade coal which cannot be burned commercially. The water that was used by the preparation
plant to clean the coal was pumped to the head of Middle Fork hollow into the newly built settlement pond. There, the tailings
or minute particles of coal and coal waste material would settle to the bottom of the pond, and clear water could be skimmed
off the top and pumped through the plant again.
By the time of the Buffalo Creek disaster, hundreds of tons of this sludge had collected on the bottom of the three ponds.
A virtual swamp land of muck and mire.
When an examination of the dam sites had taken place shortly after the disaster, inspectors found
that, other than just coal fines and slate, the ponds also contained a vast assortment of other fill material. Along with
the waste material normally deposited in the fill were mine safety post, half-header boards, crib blocks, roof bolts discarded
mine machinery and even household garbage. The amount of refuse and waste being dumped into Middle Fork depended on the amount
of coal going through the preparation plant. Dam site #1 had began to fill up with settlement and in 1966,
Buffalo Creek Mining decided that another holding pond was needed and construction began. The new holding pond was built 600
feet upstream of dam #1, again by using the same engineering practices that was used to construct dam #1, simply just dumping
waste across the hollow floor.
Again, it isnt exactly known if Buffalo Creek Mining had submitted a proposed construction plan to
state agencies for approval. The Dam Control Act, which gave strict guidelines to coal companies on how and where sediment
ponds could actually and safely be built was not in affect at this time. Sadly, this law didnt exist until the following year
after the Buffalo Creek Disaster.
It would also seem that no one from either the West Virginia Water Resources Commission, the West
Virginia Department of Environmental Protection or any of the state or federal mine enforcement
divisions, had inspected the new site. Because of the way that the new site was being constructed, I cant imagine anyone actually
approving this type of construction. Here, also, it should be noted that Buffalo Creek
Mining wasnt alone in using this type of dam construction practices. It was a widely used practice throughout the entire mining
region, not only in West Virginia, but in every other state at that time that mined coal.
It was at this time that the coal refuse dump in Aberfan, Wales avalanched down a mountainside killing 144 people of which
116 were innocent school children.
This disaster in England should have woken government officials in the United States to the type of
deadly danger these sites posed. In a small way, it did. The U.S Bureau of Mines began to make a list of similar sites throughout
the coal mining regions in Appalachia. Attention was given to the sites that seemed to be able to cause the same type of disaster
in the U.S. as the one did in England. It seemed, for a time, that concern
was given about possible lose of life or extensive property damage.
Even the United Mine Workers of America got into the act of search and repair, again, for a limited
time. Letters were sent from their headquarters in Washington, D.C. to all district and local offices requiring the membership
to report on any dangerous or unsafe conditions in their respected regions.
Documented reports and individual accounts recall that the recording secretary of the Lorado local union of the United Mine
Workers had in-fact, sent a letter to the labor unions headquarters advising them of the danger that Middle Fork dams posed.
In December of 1966, an inspection was made of the Middle Fork refuse site. The inspection report
read that the refuse site at the mouth of Middle Fork in Saunders was stable as far as the possibility for a land slide was
concerned but it was subject to the possibility of a washout on the north side
from overflow of dam #1. Company officials for Buffalo Creek Mining had said that they had never received any type of report
from the Bureau of Mines regarding their findings on the Middle Fork site.
Now it is basic human nature to fix the barn door after you loose your horse. In other words, if it
aint broke dont fix it. The refuse site at Saunders looked good, worked good and no one no one wanted to cause any problems
with either company or government officials.
Disaster motivates mankind to look for possible causes, reasons why and ways to never allow it to
happen again. This is a good practice in theory but the downside of it is simply this, after the stench of disaster and the
clean up has finished, we tend to forget that it had ever happened. Wonder what would happen to the airline companies if they
only performed one inspection on their airplanes after they bought them and put them in use? Answer, thousands would be killed
annually by faulty airplanes. Cure? Daily inspections are done and possible problems are corrected before airline disasters
occur. The disaster at Aberfan provoked officials to do something, sadly all they done was to make a few inspections and citations
issued but no sites were ever repaired or reclaimed.
More on Buffalo Creek Disaster Coming Soon, Please keep checking back.
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