Coal Firm Seeks Bond Release on Reclaimed Mine Despite Missing Paperwork

State regulators must decide whether to release a $15,600 reclamation bond on a 5-acre McDowell County mine after the coal company seeking that release submitted paperwork listing the completion date for reclamation work as "N/A."

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection holds that bond as financial assurance that the land would be properly restored. When a company claims full reclamation but cannot document when the work was finished, the core premise of that guarantee remains unresolved.

The unnamed company's bond request reached regulators as the DEP faced a separate set of federal challenges over its handling of Bluestone Coal Corp. mines in the same county. The U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, in a December 2024 notice, indicated it suspected the DEP had violated its own regulation by not revoking a mine's permit, citing Bluestone's failure to start abatement measures for 15 cessation orders. The same notice found that 13 cessation orders the DEP had issued against Bluestone since February 2024 remained unabated.

OSMRE zeroed in further on Bluestone's No. 45 Mine in the Tug Fork River watershed in McDowell County. In a Dec. 10, 2024 notice, the federal agency identified a coal stockpile area at the mine and confirmed it was controlled by the family of Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va. OSMRE found that Bluestone may have failed to apply for inactive status, obtain a reclamation cost bond, and start backfilling and regrading within the 180 days required by state statute.

The DEP responded to those warnings by marking four Bluestone renewal applications for permits in McDowell and Wyoming counties as "technically complete," saying the renewals were in the process of being approved. DEP spokesman Terry Fletcher described the action in narrow terms, saying permit renewals "aren't the issuance of a new permit or a significant revision to an existing permit."

OSMRE, despite flagging those suspected DEP regulatory failures, signed off on the department's oversight of the Justice family-controlled mine within the same December 2024 notice. The agency's decision to simultaneously raise concerns and approve oversight reflected a broader tension between federal scrutiny and state administrative deference.

That tension sharpened further after the presidential transition. After threatening to seize enforcement authority from West Virginia regulators over one of Sen. Jim Justice's coal mines with chronic environmental violations during the waning weeks of the Biden administration, federal authorities pulled back under the Trump administration.

With federal oversight in retreat, the DEP holds the primary line on two unresolved questions in McDowell County: whether Bluestone's accumulation of unabated cessation orders is compatible with permit renewals moving forward, and whether a company's own "N/A" paperwork is sufficient documentation to unlock $15,600 in bond money on land it insists was already restored.