At 8 a.m. on Feb. 26, 1972, 130 million gallons of water and coal sludge burst through a dam, poured into Buffalo Creek, and violently surged through 16 . Looking back at the Buffalo Creek Disaster. Logan County West Virginia Man, 1997. September 30, 1870: Harpers Ferry flood. Your account has been registered, and you are now logged in. Stern describes victims losing family members before their eyes, and the devastation caused by the flood. I'm interested in (please check all that apply). The failure of a giant 84-acre coal ash impoundment (upper right) at TVAs Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee, released 5.4 million cubic yards of ash slurry into the Emory & Clinch rivers and the downstream community of Harriman, TN. In 1977, Governor Moore, with three days left in office, accepted a settlement offer of $1 million for a suit in which the state sought $100 million from the coal company. 2's slurry pool. I didnt have no fear for water, Id just jump right in any lake or river and swim. An accounting of the disaster, and multiple investigations, would then proceed to piece together what had happened there, focused on the coal mining and dam building. The Earth Justice organization, one of the environmental groups following this issue, has complied a U.S. map of these sites as shown above. I was terrified of water because I lived through it as a kid and I was just traumatized, but I tell you what, after that dam broke and I seen what I seen, I never was afraid of water again. On Saturday, the community showed they are still standing with a room full of survivors coming . the burning refuse pile before wiping out the Buffalo Creek valley. Our lives, our communities the coal company created it, the coal company destroyed it.. It was a recipe for disaster as the trio of dams was inadequate to handle runoff from large rainstorms, like the one that dumped several inches of rain on Logan County by early Saturday morning, Feb. 26. Afterward, the survivors informally sit and talk about their memories from the flood and how it affected their lives. Pierson said he traumatized at age seven by the power going off during a rain storm and his grandfather knocking on the door. 39, No. Men and women, children and animals were floating in that high wall of water.. The Buffalo Creek Disaster: How the Survivors of One of the Worst Disasters in Coal-Mining History Brought Suit Against the Coal Company- And Won. As I rode that house down the creek I could see that the bottom of it was above those telephone poles in the holler.. Pittston objected to Arnold & Porters more definite statement, asking the Richard Carelli, Mining Official Blames Explosions on Flood Water Hitting Hot Slag Pile, Charleston Gazette, March 9, 1972. A bulldozer slid into the pond and its driver died. U.S. General Accounting Office, Delayed Redevelopment was Reasonable after Flood Disaster in West Virginia, Report of the Comptroller of the United States, Washington, DC: 1976. Gerald M. Stern, The Buffalo Creek Disaster: The Story of the Survivors Unprecedented Lawsuit, New York: Random House, 1976. with little windows and doors and a small latch on No silver spoon, no silver cup., While visiting Buffalo Creek, Breiding stood at the very spot where the dams had once been. Aerial photograph from 'The Herald Dispatch' (Huntington, WV) captures some of the enormous damage in the Buffalo Creek valley, showing collection of homes uprooted and floated down the valley, covering roads and rail lines. Left over from Scots-Irish immigrants? This dam failure released 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry into the Emory and Clinch rivers. Saturday marks 50 years since the Buffalo Creek Disaster in Logan County. spillway on Dam #3. [W]e decided we would band together and hope it would relieve our tensions and fears, stated one member of the group. This mining activity, though in the past, had stripped away the water-absorbing forest undergrowth, thus increasing surface run-off during heavy precipitation. Survivors of 1972 Dam Disaster Accept $13.5-Million Settlement, New York Times, July 6, 1974. October 6, 1982: Buffalo Creek flood settlement. Nader was also quoted saying: The Buffalo Creek massacre is only one more in the long series of tragedies which coal corporations have perpetrated upon the people of Appalachia, especially of West Virginia.. 302-305. Pittston To address this problem, two of the main actions taken by the U.S. Bureau of Mines (the federal mine safety agency at that time, now MSHA) were to strengthen the regulations governing the construction of dams by coal mining companies, and to develop in-house technical expertise on impoundment safety. In that case, the bottom of the 72-acre Big Branch slurry impoundment owned by the Martin County Coal Corp. broke through an abandoned underground mine located below it. amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; One resident at the scene, later quoted in in Kai T. Eriksons book, Everything in Its Path, noted of the onrushing tide: This water, when it came down through here, it acted real funny. Wallace Adkins of Robinette, tried to escape the on-rushing wall of water by loading up his family car. Children walk along the tracks in what remains of their community along Buffalo Creek, in West Virginia, on Feb. 27, 1972. A coal mine explodes - and a dam fails. An early New York Times story filed from Man, West Virginia, implicated 'coal waste pile' in its reporting on the Buffalo Creek disaster, along with a photo of some of the local damage. That year, the Buffalo Creek Watershed Association was formed. The tragedy resulted in a $13.5 million class action settlement, and led to the 1973 Dam . I told you this was going to happen, he said, I told you. He had voted for Randolph, but was frustrated with the political process and how the locals were regarded by most politicians. But the dam pools, and the dumping of the solid slag wastes on the dam structures, were both essentially cost-saving, cheapest-way-to-do-it coal industry practices. "one acre of area covered by water to a depth of 300 feet", OR dumping coal refuse into the mouth of Middle Fork hollow. Williams explained that such mining was only viable because the state allowed it to externalize costs i.e., impose its pollution, mine wastes, and environmental damage on landowners and the general public. They are used to hard times. of Inquiry into the Buffalo Creek Floods documents. 1. Jules Loh, Associated Press, Buffalo Creek Hollow: A Nice Place to Live Then The Flood, March 5, 1972. Chad Motrie's 2003 history of Appalachian strip mining. The governors acquiescence proved costly for the state, as West Virginia ended up forced to reimburse the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers $9 million for recovery work. However, in this case, Dam No. a vote of 12 million Logan County West Virginia Man, 1997. Vicki Smith, Feds OK Coal Slurry Dam Expansion, GazetteMail.com, March 25, 2013. to a federal court which would require the court to allow a piercing of the Buffalo Mining Company's corporate vail Needed a way to circumvent the $110,000 max wrongful death settlement in West Virginia -$110,000 is the cap for compensatory damages -if it could be proven that Pittston's conduct was "willful, or reckless or wanton then the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. He was heavily involved in writing federal regulations and beefed-up criteria for the construction of coal waste dams and their maintenance. miners. Or something else altogether? Barbara Brunty watched from higher ground with her 3-year-old daughter as their home was swept away along with the girls Christmas presents: a toy motorcycle, a kitchen set and a Chatty Cathy doll. 3 had been built on top of coal slurry sediment that had collected behind the earlier dams 1 and 2, not on solid bedrock. The law appears ill-suited to relieve the victims of a disaster, who often have been scarred emotionally not by physical contact but by the destruction of their families, homes, and communities, writes Robert L. Rabin in a 1978 Stanford Law Review article examining the legal ramifications of Buffalo Creek. On Feb. 26, 1972, at approximately 8 a.m., a coal slurry impoundment dam owned by Pittston Coal Company burst . They pointed to a 1966 U.S. Geological Survey report of 1966 that had found 60 such coal mine waste piles in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia, and that little had been done to correct or eliminate those hazards and additional ones since that report was made. The pool was within three feet of the crest of the dam, and ominous cracks appeared. As the skies cleared on Sunday, February 27, West Virginias Governor, Arch Moore toured the area by helicopter, describing the awesome destruction he viewed from above. [I]f you dont do something, she wrote, prophetically, were all going to be washed away. Her letter did bring a state inspector to visit the dams. Consumer Information U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines (W. A. Wahler & Associates), Analysis of Coal Refuse Dam Failure. . Russell Mokhiber, Buffalo Creek, Chapter 5, Corporate Crime & Violence: Big Business Power and the Abuse of the Public Trust, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1998. Buffalo Creek Mine Disaster: Feb. 26, 1972. Tim Hall, left, explains how the events of the Buffalo Creek Flood shaped his life during a memorial service at the Buffalo Creek Memorial Library on Friday, Feb. 24. Headlines from 'The Springfield Republican' of Massachusetts, report on the 'W.Va. Engineers Say Buffalo Dam Doomed at Start, Logan Banner (Logan, WV), May 30, 1972. When the water set it down again, it just flattened out on the ground. 201 12th StS the court. In March 1967, a partial collapse at one of the dams caused some flooding in the hollow, alarming residents already concerned about the structures. In a 2012 interview, Porterfield said: [I]t looked like a battlefield. (AP Photo/John Raby). Coal disaster 50 years later: WVa creek teeming with fish By JOHN RABY The Associated Press, Updated February 26, 2022, 12:47 p.m. Jacob Turkale held a rainbow trout he caught Tuesday along. Dam No. Kanawha County Bar Association voted to investigate Arnold & Porters alleged Click the card to flip Definition 1 / 149 * the author, former civil rights attorney employed at Arnold and Porter (large DC firm) * lead attorney in Buffalo Creek case Click the card to flip Flashcards Learn Test Match Created by Mariam_Salman27 Terms in this set (149) At one point, West Virginia Governor Arch Moore, complaining that the states image was getting a bad rap from the media, closed the Buffalo Creek area to reporters. July 1971Pittstons vice-president of industrial engineering and training McClintock was a field worker for the Black Lung Association, an organization focused on the debilitating disease common to miners. (AP Photo/John Raby). Stern met with plaintiffs and obtained settlement authority. You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message. (ABA Required Disclosures). And this was just another little installment in the progression of a hard life, I guess., Congressman Ken Hechler put it a little more bluntly. It ripped homes from their foundations, swept up cars, mobile homes, and bridges, and even left twisted rail lines in a few places before it finished its destructive run over 17 miles to the Guyandotte River. The fact that the plaintiffs were involved in a lawsuit against Pittston instead of passively accepting their fate was alone evidence of their ability to cope, Ewen and Lewis write, essentially arguing that Everything in Its Path is myopic in its attention on the communitys destruction. Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles. Most of Buffalo Creek was previously owned by the Popp family, who ran a dairy farm before converting to grain crops such as soybeans, wheat and corn. Yet, as all who lived in those parts knew well, this was a coal disaster, not an act of God, as the coal company would later claim. NovemberSpecial grand jury led by two special prosecuting attorneys (includingWVUCollege Buffalo Creek Coal Mine, Logan County, WV Written at SFSU in 2017 About 45 years ago, at the U.S.' coal mining peak, the country had one of its worst mining-related disasters at Buffalo Creek, Logan County, West Virginia [1]. Stern met with plaintiffs and obtained settlement authority. This work revealed the inadequacies that existed at that time in the safety of many of the dams constructed by the coal mining industry. Buffalo Creek Flood released its report.The Commission concluded after eight public In the U.S. Congress at the time, federal legislation was being considered to regulate strip mining, and the Buffalo Creek disaster figured into the debate. The little girl, Darla in September, she was a Kindergarten student and she got on my bus one morning and her mother had cleaned house, Moore said, and she brought me some plastic flowers that she had got out of the garbage and brought to me, and I thought that was so sweet. Approximately 550 homes were destroyed, and another 900-plus were damaged. dams. According to Young, Appalachia is a region discarded as an expendable population. But exploring how these negative stereotypes promote such attitudes can sharpen our understanding and ability to fight the treatment of all current and future oppressed groups.. At approximately 8 a.m. on Feb. 26, 1972, a man-made coal slurry impoundment dam, which was operated by the Pittston Coal Company, burst following a prolonged period of heavy rainfall. Through the 1940s coal mining and coal washing including dumping coal refuse and coal wash water occurred in the area of the Middle Fork, one of three headwater streams that formed Buffalo Creek. There was a gold trout out there I was trying to catch, he said. I dont know where. 344.754 S839. But his youngest son and daughter and his wife were among the missing. The sociologist Kai Erikson was brought in for the latter suit as an expert witness on behalf of the survivors. The chair of the citizens commission, Norman Williams, then deputy director of West Virginias Department of Natural Resources, called for the outlawing of strip mining throughout the state. Property damage is estimated to be upward of $50 million or more. 30, No. The following morning, his wifes birthday, Harvey was on his way to pick up a cake, but police had the road blocked off. On the morning of February 26, 1972, the failure of three coal slurry dams let loose a tidal wave of destruction upon the Buffalo Creek hollow in Logan county, West Virginia. amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; 1929). The Buffalo Creek disaster is the best example of a tragedy centered on environmental injustice where the minority ethnic groups and low . 8:03 a.m., dam #3 failed and carried away dams #1 and #2. Your e-mail address will be used to confirm your account. In an out of court settlement, the survivors were awarded $13.5 million, $6 million of which was distributed on the basis of a point system as compensation for the psychological damages. Then in December 2008 a second major impoundment breach occurred this time, a failure of a giant 84-acre coal ash impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authoritys (TVA) Kingston Fossil Plant in eastern Tennessee (photo above). amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "thpohidill-20"; president stops any efforts to warn residents and reassures the police that the Part of that is to tell the survivors' story, to make it impossible . State of West Virginia sued Pittston in both state and federal court for the states You can also read the documentation to learn about Wordfence's blocking tools, or visit wordfence.com to learn more about Wordfence. As if some foreign enemy had flown in and nuked the place. Mary Walton, Triangle of Blame Placed in Disaster, Charleston Gazette, May 30, 1972, p.1. It just doesnt seem that long ago that it happened, Harvey said. By 1957, the Buffalo Mining Company, as part of its strip mining operations, began dumping gob mine waste consisting of mine dust, shale, clay, low-quality coal, and other impurities into the Middle Fork branch. We saw the water lift up our house, said Enda Baisden Short, recalling for The Herald Dispatch of Huntington, West Virginia that she and her husband had run from their home early that Saturday morning just prior to coal waste flood. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure youre on a federal government site. The result of the dam bursting was 132 million gallons of black wastewater being unleashed onto the 16 communities that encompass Buffalo Creek. Kapp, Disaster at Buffalo Creek. And then you could hear the roar of it and you could see it. As part of its more definite statement, Arnold & Porter filed with the court process loss claims without admitting any responsibility. I saw my neighbors houses leave. Mimi Pickering, my wife, made two documentary films about the disaster. Some residents in higher hilltop homes overlooking Buffalo Creek, watched as entire houses floated down the hollow, some later crashing into a small bridge downstream. Kai T. Erikson, Everything in Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976. No criminal charges were brought against the mining executives for their negligence in the creation and operation of the illegal and unstable coal waste dams. Chronology of a Disaster, BuffaloCreek Flood.org. Youve still got but it was gone, just like being somewhere and a volcano went off and wiped out your entire village, and even after it was all over with, they went through there and tore out our little road and destroyed all of our little communities, and the people that wanted to couldnt even move back to where they used to live at., It hurts, Hall said. EPA has made hazard ratings for hundreds of coal combustion waste ponds and impoundments in the U.S., ranking them for the public safety dangers and environmental risks they would pose in the event of failure. Press Release, New Federal Standards Needed for Storing Coal Waste, National Research Council (Washington, DC), October 21, 2001. a claims office in Buffalo Creek.Pittston moved for summary judgment because Pittston 1, No. Contents The buffalo creek flood a sample Investigation Results The Buffalo Creek Disaster: The Story of the Survivors' Unprecedented Lawsuit, New York, Random House, 1976. amzn_assoc_linkid = "40258c095eb99c570bd3ec58d7f0a3fb"; discovery confidential. An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the e-mail address listed on your account. To counter Eriksons claims, Ewen and Lewis include survivor testimony that he neglected. Choose wisely! Death, Destruction, Terror of 1972 Buffalo Creek Disaster Still Vivid, The Herald-Dispatch, January 15, 2009. We publish articles grounded in peer-reviewed research and provide free access to that research for all of our readers. Specific problems, such as the presence of mine workings near impoundments, are dealt with using sound engineering approaches. Table of Contents. Pittston had made only one payment for $4,000. settled a lawsuit over this breakdown. Ken Ward, Jr., Agencies Failed to Protect People, Inspector Recalls, Charleston Gazette, Tuesday, February 25, 1997. Click for copy. Although the Governors Commission had referred the case to the Logan County, West Virginia prosecutor for possible legal action against Pittston Coal Company and its subsidiary, nothing came of it. The dams, built of coal slag wastes, were then owned by the Pittston Coal Company. Robinette, tried to escape the on-rushing wall of buffalo creek disaster settlement up his family car and its driver died that... Coal mine explodes - and a dam fails the tracks in what remains of their community along Buffalo Creek:! Association buffalo creek disaster settlement formed address listed on your account Disaster: Feb. 26,,! 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