McDowell County notices cover family court case, mining permits and tax sale

A family-court publication for Zachary Tyler Carter sat beside mining permit changes and a delinquent-tax sale on McDowell County’s May 15 public-notice page, showing how much county business moves through legal ads. The notices carried immediate consequences for a Whitesville address, several coal operators, and a property tied to an overdue tax sale.

The domestic-relations filing was an order of publication in Family Court Civil Action No. 26-DV-23 and Magistrate Court Case No. 26-M27D-00024. It named Zachary Tyler Carter, listed 1223 Sengcreek Road in Whitesville and gave a date of birth of February 13, 2004. The filing was labeled a protective-order and hearing-date notice, the kind of publication used when a case must move ahead through formal notice rather than ordinary service.

The same page also carried a cluster of coal-related filings. Mid-VOL Coal Sales, Inc. filed an operator-assignment notice for permit S400709, seeking to add MEGA HIGHWALL MINING, LLC as an operator on the permit. Chestnut Land Holdings, LLC filed a permit-reissuance notice, while Westwood Mining Co., Inc. sought renewal of Article 3 Permit O401786 for surface mining of about 7.2 acres. Cornerstone Mining, LLC filed for reissuance of Article 11/WVNPDES Permit No. WV1026526 to operate and maintain a haulroad 0.90 miles northeast of Maybeury.

Those permit notices matter because West Virginia requires surface-mining applications to identify the applicant, record owner, leaseholders, purchasers under contract and operator, along with business principals when relevant. Cornerstone’s water-discharge permit also falls under the state NPDES program, which West Virginia administers under federal delegation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Property records were moving too. One notice involved Roller Coaster Resources LLC and a delinquent-tax sale tied to Pine Oak LLC, with a redemption deadline of May 25, 2026. The page also included a trustee’s sale notice and a notice of administration to creditors, distributees and legatees, reinforcing how foreclosure, estate work and tax enforcement all land in the same public stream.

McDowell County’s latest census counts help explain why these notices draw close attention. The county had 19,111 residents in 2020 and an estimated 16,878 in 2025, down from 22,113 in 2010. Long-running research on the county ties that decline to coal mechanization and deindustrialization, and the notice page still reflects those pressures in real time, through land titles, mining permits, court procedure and deadlines that can change who controls property or work on the ground.