of Law Dean Willard Lorensen) brings no criminal indictments against Pittston. Beyond coal, and headquartered in New York City, Pittston had other diverse holdings an oil company, a large trucking firm, the Brinks armored car company, and forty percent of the warehouses in New York City. 1945The Lorado Coal Company opened a coal mine at Buffalo Creek and began Nearly 50 years later, there are still hundreds of coal waste dams to worry about, as well as other assorted coal waste dangers throughout the U.S. The people he encountered, Breiding said, were thankful that somebody still remembered, because its something that has been buried in many peoples memories and buried in the past. As William Faulkner wrote in Requiem for a Nun: The past is never dead. 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) I saw my neighbors houses leave. The Buffalo Creek Disaster of 1972. There had been emergency relief, but little community redevelopment. February 26, 2022, marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most devastating mine disasters in U.S. history. 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. But this dam dam No. Pittston announced in 1999 that it was leaving the coal business. Dam No. 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. Homes were left in splinters Railroad tracks yanked up and twisted. Young ranks the spill as but one more state crime in a long list of state crimes, a list on which Buffalo Creek is also included. Titchener, F.T. amzn_assoc_asins = "0393332217,0938985108,B01MXPYJBV,0802124658"; Feb 28, 1972. Your e-mail address will be used to confirm your account. A roadside historical marker describing the Buffalo Creek coal impoundment disaster is shown Feb. 22, 2022, in Man, W.Va. Fifty years ago in West Virginia, the collapse of an coal-waste impoundment unleashed a torrent of black water into a narrow valley. But West Virginia newspapers in the area were covering the tragedy closely, as the grim business of accounting for the dead, injured, and homeless continued. Arch Moore agreed to a $1 million settlement before leaving office in . By that time he had stopped screaming and drunk so much water and everything I dont what happened to him.. its motion to dismiss. By the days end, hundreds of homes and vehicles were destroyed, thousands were left homeless, and 125 men, women, and children were dead. February 22A federal mine inspector andBMCsafety engineer For the first time, individuals who were not present at the scene of a disaster were allowed to recover for mental injuries. 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.. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. A wave of nearly 130 million gallons of water and other material (a total volume estimated to be between 300 and 400 acre-feet) roared down the Buffalo Creek valley at a velocity estimated to be 20 feet per second in its initial three miles. A wave from the waste dam flooded and destroyed the Buffalo Creek community [2]. amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; The Citizens Commission found Pittston Coal reckless and negligent and the state negligent in ensuring safety compliance. Thomas N. Bethell and Davitt McAteer, The Pittston Mentality: Manslaughter on Buffalo Creek, Washington Monthly, May 1972. 1946The Buffalo Creek Company purchased the Lorado Coal Company. Human relationships in this community had been derived from traditional bonds of kinship and neighborliness. 12, No. It wasnt long after the flood that lawsuits were brought against Pittston Coal, the company responsible for the slurry dams. Boulders donated by another mine operator were strategically placed in the creek. May 1, 1971Pittston acquiredBMCand assumed sole management Miles away, a coal companys hillside impoundment dams collapsed, sending slurry thundering downhill and into the hollow, inundating small communities and killing 125 people. The water was there, and then it was gone Edna Baisden And on the morning of February 26, 1972, just after 8:00 am, that worst fear was realized. 3), Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1972. and highway, demolished seven houses, killed six people, and injured four. One thing that really impressed me, though, was there was no immediate display of emotion, Porterfield said, remembering the survivors. ofBMC. Today is the 49th anniversary of one of the worst mining catastrophes in West Virginia history, the Buffalo Creek Disaster. The Pittston Company: Company Profile & History, ReferenceForBusiness.com. For as it turns out, there are coal waste impoundments, and coal waste disposal methods, of many kinds. They lost loved ones, their homes, their neighbors, their community. Erin L. McCoy, The U.S. Has Nearly 600 Coal Waste Sites. Additionally, on one side of the valley below Dam #1, there was a huge smoldering coal refuse pile. 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. . The moving wall of wastewater did its damage in seconds, in repeated fashion, as it moved down the hollow. During World War II, almost a half million POWs were interned in the United States, where they forged sympathetic relationships with Black American soldiers. Wallace Adkins of Robinette, tried to escape the on-rushing wall of water by loading up his family car. 344.754 S839. Arnold and Porter noticed Pittstons president and vice-presidents depositions George Vecsey, West Virginians Living in Hollows Fear That Mine Waste Piles in Their Areas Will Cause Next Flood, New York Times, March 6, 1972. Part of that is to tell the survivors' story, to make it impossible . I didnt want to drown. Many cases can take months if not years to reach trial and settlement. The association used settlement money to start fixing the creek. Buffalo Creek Flood released its report.The Commission concluded after eight public June 26, 1974The plaintiffs and Pittston settle for $13.5 million. West Virginias Secretary of State at the time, Jay Rockefeller (D) who became a candidate for Governor running against Arch Moore in the 1972 fall election also favored banning strip mining. President Richard Nixon, then in China, had contacted Moore by phone to promise Federal disaster aid. Buffalo Creek, West Virginia Division of Culture and History, 2012. Three coal waste dams in West Virginia failed, killing 125 people and injuring 1,100 more in communities downstream of the dams. The next day, February 26th, at 1:30 a.m. the water was twelve inches from the dams crest and oozing through the dams surface. If your house burned down, youve still got your neighbors. process loss claims without admitting any responsibility. Hope Wanes for 94 Listed Missing in Logan; Known Flood Dead is 88, Charleston Gazette, March 4, 1972. He believed most local people didnt tell Randolph and other politicians how they really feel. Coal waste dumping had gone on there for decades, up in the hills, at the headwaters of the Buffalo Creek. psychic injury while they were physically away from Buffalo Creek during the flood. Senator). 1970Pittstons London insurance underwriters inquired about all of its They are used to hard times. The flood, known as the Buffalo Creek disaster, is considered one of the worst disasters in both American and Mountain State history. In just a few brief moments, 125 people were killed, 1,100 were injured, and over 4,000 were left without homes [1] as the result of a collapsed coal waste dam. Approximately 550 homes were destroyed, and another 900-plus . Williams wasnt alone in pointing to the ravages of strip mining. 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.. buffalo creek disaster 1 - Free download as Word Doc (.doc / .docx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. - $13 million - Initially asked for $32 million - 2016: would be $65,208,559 (without legal and contingency fees) The outcome for Arnold & Porter - $3 million in legal fees (1974) - 43,000 man-hours . Recent history suggests that a number of these facilities and practices hold public safety risks and/or environmental threats. August 8, 1972Congress passed the National Dam Inspection Act. Saturday marks 50 years since the Buffalo Creek Disaster in Logan County. United States Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Subcommittee on Labor, Buffalo Creek (W. Va.) Disaster 1972, Hearings, May 30 and 31, 1972, 2 vols. The Buffalo Creek flood was a disaster that occurred on February 26, 1972, when the Pittston Coal Company's coal slurry impoundment dam #3, located on a hillside in Logan County, West Virginia, burst, four days after having been declared 'satisfactory' by a federal mine inspector. Invalid password or account does not exist. 1. Kanawha County Bar Association voted to investigate Arnold & Porters alleged settled a lawsuit over this breakdown. of Inquiry into the Buffalo Creek Floods documents. Among those pressing for action in Washington was consumer advocate Ralph Nader, well known by then for taking on politicians and corporations. He lives in my building. and submitted other discovery requests to Pittston. Jack Doyle, Date Posted: 31 January 2019 Nader and McAteer, in a letter to key members of Congress urging investigations, estimated that hundreds of thousands of West Virginians living in narrow Appalachian valleys, could be threatened by sudden catastrophic flooding from unstable coal waste dams. March 11, 1967Pittstons Dola, W.Va., dam failed and a massive flood Gazette-Mail/L. a vote of 12 million NovemberSpecial grand jury led by two special prosecuting attorneys (includingWVUCollege 1 filled up with fine waste, then Dam No. Mary Walton, State Warned in 1967 of Larado Dam Danger, Charleston Gazette, March 1, 1972. West Virginia Congressman Ken Heckler (D) had offered a bill in 1971 to ban all surface coal mining. The Springfield Republican newspaper of of Springfield, Massachusetts ran a wire story from United Press International (UPI) on the front page with the headline: 80 to 90 Feared Dead in W. Va. Dam Break; Mining Town Wiped Out. That story shared the front page with other national and regional news that day, picturing U.S. Approximately $5.5 million was provided for property and wrongful-death damages, with approximately $8 million for the psychic impairment claims. flood the people will already have their coffins Some 208 of these coal combustion waste sites are known to have contaminated groundwater, wetlands, and/or rivers. The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Labor had already begun an investigation, and by late May 1972 also began a series of public hearings on the Buffalo Creek disaster. 1948US Department of Interior published an information circular, Burning The experts concluded that the victims suffered from but then Gov. 128-129. Pierson said he traumatized at age seven by the power going off during a rain storm and his grandfather knocking on the door. 417-424, Appalachian Journal, Vol. A close look at Buffalo Creek illuminates the regions ties to coal. September 30, 1870: Harpers Ferry flood. Pierson said the flood had a rather unique impact on him it caused him to conquer his fear of water. Somewhere down in this valley I was born, Breiding sings on the album, adopting the persona of a fourth-generation coal miner who never left home. Black water was pumped into pools behind the dams and dams filtered the deposits so that relatively clear water could run out their downstream face. However, he did question the ability of the overflow pipes in Dam No. January 1, 1971Pittstons umbrella insurance underwriters imposed a $1 Hearing before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs United States Senate July 20, 1972. March 5, 1972. 1967The U.S. Department of Interior releases its Report on Condition In the wake of this disaster, Congress asked the National Research Council to examine ways to reduce the potential for similar accidents in the future, and their report appeared in October 2001, recommending the federal government establish clear authority to review the stability of such impoundments, improve regulation, establish minimum distance rules, and undertake more complete mapping of existing and abandoned underground mines. Youve still got your church. 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 Charleston Gazette reporting on the rising death toll of the Buffalo Creek Disaster and Pittstons PR office calling the disaster an act of God. At a protest meeting held in the Buffalo Grade School in Accoville a month after the flood, an older woman stood up and shouted out: Ive lived up at the top of the hollow for a long time. The Buffalo Creek flood was a disaster that occurred in Logan County, West Virginia on February 26, 1972 when a coal slurry impoundment dam burst, causing significant loss of life and property damage. On Saturday, victims were being remembered at the same high school that served as a temporary morgue 50 years ago. Mining industry-related incidents are a longstanding reality for the residents of West Virginia, Young writes, echoing the sentiments Ralph Nader expressed decades earlier. Survey geologist inspects the Buffalo Creek dam and concludes that it was basically February 1972. Steve Thompson Witnessed the Buffalo Creek Flood Disaster First Hand. 22-45, Appalachian Journal and Appalachian State University, Social Justice, Vol. amzn_assoc_region = "US"; Last updated on December 30, 2015. Army personnel, the Red Cross, state and county officials were all on the scene by then as well, trying to feed, clothe and comfort survivors. with little windows and doors and a small latch on You will then receive an email that helps you regain access. the front to drag them to paradise california. The Pittston Coal Co., meanwhile, continued extracting coal in the Buffalo Creek area through its subsidiary there. In fact, the company was cited for over 5,000 safety violations at its mines nationally in 1971. 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]. George Vecsey, West Virginia Flood Toll At 60 With Hundreds Lost, New York Times, February 28, 1972. International television coverage of the American Civil Rights struggle was critical in the construction of racial identity and experience in postwar Britain. I just got done buying a Geiger counter and rebuilding it for someone because everybodys getting afraid of Russia right now.. Tempers flared there as one local man tore into Randolph. W. Va. 1974). Buffalo Creek, whose habitat was destroyed along a 17-mile (27-kilometer) stretch, is teeming with trout again, after a steady, coordinated effort by Harvey and others to get back what they once had and share it with future generations. A Buffalo Creek native, Victor M. Depta, gets at this idea of recurring tragedy in a 1973 poem, written not long after the flood. We saw the water lift up our house, said Enda Baisden Short, recalling for. March 28Pittston press release stating that it had opened offices to The citizens commission report, formally titled. shares to 1,217 shares. Robert Weedall, West Virginias climatologist, noted in later remarks that yes, Act of God is a legal term, but there were other perhaps more apt legal terms that might apply to what had happened in Buffalo Creek, such as involuntary manslaughter or criminal negligence. The record, however, would prove that acts of man had everything to do with what happened at Buffalo Creek. A German immigrant from Munich, John Popp (1832-1922) arrived in the U.S. in 1851 and settled in Wheeling. It goes between the hospital and the high school and I remember when we got off, these people run up to us and they was writing down our names to get a recovery list for people that made it, and needless to say, there was groups of people that were sent there.. forbidden in December 1970. Ive been fishing here for almost 17 years. If you are a WordPress user with administrative privileges on this site, please enter your email address in the box below and click "Send". 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. June 12, 1964Buffalo Mining Company (BMC) incorporated. You build them up with a bunch of political propaganda.., he said, also suggesting that the coal operators money installed the politicians in Washington, and then, you dont care nothing about us., Not long after the dams had burst, and the flood waters had raged through the Buffalo Creek communities, Pittstons New York public relations office, attempting to absolve the company from legal responsibility, issued a news release stating that the flood was an act of God. The dam, said the Pittston officials, was simply incapable of holding the water God poured into it.. What was the actual settlement agreement in the Buffalo Creek disaster? The plaintiffs settled out of court for $13.5 million in 1974, with each individual receiving an average of $13,000 after legal costs. Vintage. (3) U.S. Congress. 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). It just broke your heart to see firsthand the devastation that water could do, he would tell a Herald Dispatch reporter. As if some foreign enemy had flown in and nuked the place. were provided to Stern. Field Foundation proposed a resolution that Pittston should spend more money to The socio-psychology of all this was probed and covered in an award-winning 1976 book by Kai T. Erikson. WV Governor, Arch Moore. (HTTP response code 503). In 1854, he married Margaretha Weidner (1832-1910). More than a dozen homes and hundreds of acres in the down-stream community of Harriman, TN were hit with a gigantic toxic mess. 1904The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad completed its Charleston, W.Va., 3 every day. He relied on depositions and additional interviews he conducted to write Everything in Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood. ), 400 Still Missing in West Virginia Flood, February 28, 1972. For the flood that followed the collapse of West Virginia's Buffalo Creek Dam in 1972like the one in Idahowas a manmade "natural disaster." It killed 125 people and left hundreds of coal. 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. This subcommittee would hear from dozens of witnesses, and was briefed at one point by experts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who provided a scale model of the site with details of what happened (see photo below). Sources: The Herald Dispatch, newspaper of Huntington, WV, Thomas Marsh, and the West Virginia Division of Culture and History. In addition to the two West Virginia reports, there were also several others, including the U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing record already mentioned; a U.S. Geological Survey report; a U.S. Department of the Interior Report; and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report all of which, in one form or another, found fault with the design, integrity, and lack of oversight of the dams, and how regulators and the Pittston Coal Company failed to meet their responsibilities for public health and safety. BMCs vice 2023 West Virginia University. Im a bit of a prepper, Hall said, and that flood I think done it, because I dont never want to be caught again with nothing. July 14, 1970West Virginia Department of Natural Resources (WVDNR) Inspector U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines (W. A. Wahler & Associates), Analysis of Coal Refuse Dam Failure. In the last week of his second term in 1977, Moore accepted a $1 million payment from Pittston Coal Company to settle accounts from the Buffalo Creek Disaster. Dam #3 in his inspection report. Mine Safety Health Administration lists 570 active coal impoundments across the country. No evidence of an act of God was found by the Commission. Mine Safety and Health Administration) to the Buffalo Creek area a few days after the disaster. Drinking water systems in ten counties had to be shut down, and a 20-mile stretch of river was declared an aquatic dead zone: more than 1,500 fish were killed. One retired coal miner who survived the flood, but who lost his wife, daughter and granddaughter in the disaster, explained what he experienced in one Charleston Gazette account: How I got out of that water, I dont know I rode the house a long ways. McClintock was a field worker for the Black Lung Association, an organization focused on the debilitating disease common to miners. One lawsuit was filed by the state of West Virginia, while another class action lawsuit was filed by survivors of the flood. Choose wisely! Film Clip, The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act Of Man, YouTube.com (8:22), February 20, 2012. recommended an emergency spillway on Dam #3 in his inspection report. Erikson, a Yale professor when he arrived in Buffalo Creek, is one such outsider, having no connection to the region until he was brought in as an expert witness. Four years after the disaster, in 1976, about 100 families were still living in the government provided mobile homes. The news of the Buffalo Creek Disaster broke variously across the nation the next few days, in part due to the difficulty of getting to the site. Arnold & Porter amended their complaint to add almost 200 more plaintiffs, gave way, killing eight people. 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. Volunteers picked up trash around the creek. In addition to its coal debris, the slurry wave picked up an abrasive and destructive mixture of semi-rotten trees, rocks, and sediment as it went, gouging out the land and becoming a more lethal force capable of battering and sweeping away all in its path. Somewhere along there I lost that boy of mine. TVAs spill was from a coal ash impoundment, which is somewhat different than a mine-site slurry impoundment, as it deals with post-combustion, powerplant coal ash, which involves a different regulatory arena than mine-site or coal processing impoundments. State officials requested a few minor alterations to the impoundment. The people of Appalachia seem to be forever poised at some vague mid-point between ability and disability, is one such Erikson statement. 3 was being filled at a rate of about 1,000 tons of refuse a day, carried from the coal preparation plant to the dam in 30-ton trucks. 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