Valve failure spills 100 gallons of oil near Eckman, prompts response

A valve failure at a Diversified Energy compressor station near Eckman sent about 100 gallons of used oil into a small McDowell County watershed Friday, but state officials said the leak was stopped quickly, the spill was contained and downstream water utilities were notified right away.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection said most of the oil was captured in the site’s existing control structures, with additional downstream controls added as a precaution. Some of the oil reached Coalbank Branch, where contractors deployed containment booms and recovery tools to limit how far the material could spread.

State officials said no fish kill had been observed and no public water systems were known to be affected. Municipal drinking water remained unaffected, but the agency still alerted downstream public water utilities immediately because even a relatively small release can move quickly through a mountain watershed and raise concerns for communities that depend on nearby streams.

The release came from a storage tank at the compressor station, and WVDEP said it was on-site responding the same day. The spill site sits next to a permitted mine haulroad area owned by Mid-Vol Coal, adding another layer of land-use complexity around the drainage that carried the oil toward Coalbank Branch. Material collected in the site’s drainage control structures has been removed, and remediation work is continuing.

Coalbank Branch is a monitored stream in WVDEP water-quality records, and the agency’s public map tools track both oil and gas infrastructure and the proximity of those sites to public water supplies. That matters in McDowell County, where even a contained spill can quickly turn into a drinking-water precaution for residents and water operators downstream.

The county’s water systems have long struggled with reliability. McDowell County Public Service District posts water quality reports and public notices, including boil-water advisories and lifts affecting communities such as Tidewater, Kimball, Crumpler, Big Four, Maybeury, Coalwood, Anawalt, Bartley, Caretta, Buchanan, Jenkinjones and Berwind. A 2024 Appalachian Voices report described years of drinking-water problems and system takeovers across the county, underscoring why state officials moved quickly to warn utilities after Friday’s release.

For Eckman and the surrounding watershed, the immediate concern is now cleanup, monitoring and whether state records show this compressor station or operator has faced prior spills or violations. WVDEP’s compliance databases and watershed tools will provide the public record as officials continue tracking the response and any follow-up work at the site.