dams. 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. 16, No. Boulders donated by another mine operator were strategically placed in the creek. By 2003, Pittston had moved into one of its more profitable businesses, private security, then adopting its Brinks Company subsidiary as its new corporate name. Last updated on December 30, 2015. Somewhere along there I lost that boy of mine. How much was the settlement? According to some, however, there were positive changes that did come to coalfield and regulatory practices in the years immediately following the disaster. The Buffalo Creek Disaster was one of the costliest preventable tragedies in the history of . As of 1987, Pittston was still among the ten largest coal companies in the U.S. 1942Buchanan County coal refuse pile explosion covered the railroad tracks The failure occurred a minute or so before 8:00 a.m. February 26, 1972, and was solely the cause of the Buffalo Creek flood. April 30, 1974Plaintiffs amended their complaint. motions due. to let the plaintiffs see Pittstons insurance documents and refused to keep April 1, 1974Pittston moved to dismiss absent plaintiffs, plaintiffs claiming 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. 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. The spill covered the surrounding land with up to six feet of sludge. [I]f you dont do some-thing, were all going to be washed away., By June 1970, Pittston had acquired the Buffalo Mining Company. The dams, built of coal slag wastes, were then owned by the Pittston Coal Company. The Buffalo Creek Flood was a disaster that occurred in 1972 in West Virginia. Recent history suggests that a number of these facilities and practices hold public safety risks and/or environmental threats. For the individuals being stereotyped, it can lead to internalization. solicitation of legal business. It later concluded that there was no impropriety. Its nine members, however, were either sympathetic to the coal industry, or government officials whose departments might have been complicit in the dams failures. million deductible in response to the Dola, W. Va., dam failure. Looking back at the Buffalo Creek Disaster. Today is the 40th anniversary of the dam bursting which was owned by Pittston Coal Company. No dollar amount could ever erase for the survivors what happened at Buffalo Creek. But it brings back memories. I remember that just like it was yesterday., Today's breaking news and more in your inbox, Copyright The Intelligencer | https://www.theintelligencer.net | 1500 Main Street, Wheeling, WV 26003 | 304-233-0100. Jack Spadaro, a mine safety investigator and environmental specialist, has made it his lifes work to prevent such disasters from happening again. Among officials and Senators shown are, from left: Dennis Gibson, Buffalo Mining Co.(22) Garth Fuguay (21, with pointer), Army Corps of Engineers; Sen. Harold Hughes (18); Sen. Jennings Randolph (17); Sen. Jacob Javits (16); Sen. Harrison Williams (15); Sen. Richard Scheiker (19), and Sen. Robert Stafford (20). Committee in a lawsuit against Pittston. [W]e decided we would band together and hope it would relieve our tensions and fears, stated one member of the group. Events Leading To The Buffalo Creek Disaster, BuffaloCreekFlood.org. right below the dam. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. 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. 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. As an article in Vox noted, this kind of stereotyping is on full display in the popular book and film Hillbilly Elegy. Pittston was also the fifth largest corporate landowner in the Appalachian region at the time, holding nearly 375,000 acres. AprilOver 1,000 residents registered claims with Pittston. The Logan prosecutor said at the time that Pittstons failure to receive a state dam license was merely a misdemeanor and that a one-year statute of limitations for prosecutions had lapsed. July 14, 1970West Virginia Department of Natural Resources (WVDNR) Inspector An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the e-mail address listed on your account. And people die. I didnt want to drown. A search of Public Service Commission records in response to Pearl Woodrums complaint failed to produce any proof that dams No.1 and No. State regulators sued the mines owner. Youve still got your church. November 14, 1970: Marshall University football team killed in plane crash. 1. West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. 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. 1, No. Then I fell off in the water. Buffalo Creek Disaster YE HAO GBL395 Summer 2014 Synopsis: . Death, Destruction, Terror of 1972 Buffalo Creek Disaster Still Vivid, The Herald-Dispatch, January 15, 2009. The lawsuit and the book provide the In March 1967, a partial collapse at one of the dams caused some flooding in the hollow, alarming residents already concerned about the structures. Brittany Patterson, The Cautionary Tale of the Largest Coal Ash Waste Site in the U.S., AlleghenyFront.org, June 22, 2018. Buffalo Creek Disaster Gerald M. Stern 3.68 2,196 ratings176 reviews One Saturday morning in February 1972, an impoundment dam owned by the Pittston Coal Company burst, sending a 130 million gallon, 25 foot tidal wave of water, sludge, and debris crashing into southern West Virginia's Buffalo Creek hollow. Click here to stay informed and subscribe to. If your house burned down, youve still got your neighbors. I repair Geiger counters. Article Citation: 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). Buffalo Creek Disaster Term 1 / 149 Who is Gerald Stern? And by 1968, the company was dumping more gob at a third location, another 600 feet upstream. 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. #3 in his inspection report. These cracks were a clear indication of the saturation and subsequent destabilization of the structure, but no evacuation order was issued. gave way, killing eight people. Engineers Say Buffalo Dam Doomed at Start, Logan Banner (Logan, WV), May 30, 1972. It was 2 (Spring 1973), pp. Approximately 550 homes were destroyed, and another 900-plus were damaged. In addition to the deaths, the disaster injured 1,100 and left more than 4,000 people homeless. Today is the 49th anniversary of one of the worst mining catastrophes in West Virginia history, the Buffalo Creek Disaster. .. And people died instantly when that tidal wave came through the valley.. 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. But his youngest son and daughter and his wife were among the missing. In 2005, the ecosystem took another hit when water blew out of an abandoned coal mine, turning the creek green. A Pittston Coal Group decal sticker listing some of the company's mining locations in the VA-WV area. ofBMC. When the water set it down again, it just flattened out on the ground. Total property damage was estimated at $50 million (about $340 million in 2022 dollars). One resident at the scene, later quoted in in Kai T. Eriksons book. In fact, the company was cited for over 5,000 safety violations at its mines nationally in 1971. A few helicopters were used initially until local miners and others, and the National Guard, began clearing debris and building makeshift roads and bridges. Coal waste dumping had gone on there for decades, up in the hills, at the headwaters of the Buffalo Creek. Map Feature: Coal Ash Contaminated Sites & Hazard Dams (U.S.), EarthJustice.org. Invalid password or account does not exist. studied the 1972 Buffalo Creek flood in WV. Work began on drafting a settlement. demand for injunctive relief and to strike certain allegations in the complaint Disaster at Buffalo Creek. February 28Pittston employee distributes warning memorandum previously Pittston settled all property damage claims. February 1972. 3 was rising one or two inches per hour. Pittston announced in 1999 that it was leaving the coal business. Since the impoundment regulations were implemented in 1975, there have been no incidents of dam failures at coal waste impoundments. 22-45, Appalachian Journal and Appalachian State University, Social Justice, Vol. unstable and that the bank [was] subject to large wash-out on [the] north side 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. Wallace Adkins of Robinette, tried to escape the on-rushing wall of water by loading up his family car. I watched them crumble. The survivors were not allowed to address the meeting. Buffalo Creek Mine Disaster: Feb. 26, 1972. Published: Feb. 27, 2022 at 12:17 PM PST. In a court statement later, Mr. Staten recounted his travail and losing his wife: When I looked back and saw her she said, Take care of my baby.Thats the last time I saw her., Mr. Staten and his son, meanwhile, swept along in the water, were struggling to save themselves. He lives in my building. Thanks for visiting and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. Instead, the builders end-dumped and shoved loosely compacted layers of coarse refuse across the valley. . Kanawha County Bar Association voted to investigate Arnold & Porters alleged In 1971, Pittston was cited for over 5,000 safety violations at its mines nationally. Pittston objected to Arnold & Porters more definite statement, asking the 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. Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. According to one assessment at the time: These impromptu structures were hardly dams in any technical sense They were simply piles of coal waste, clay, shale, red dog, and other by-products of the coal preparation process, dumped off the back of trucks and bulldozed to an even height. MSHA recognizes those who were impacted in the 1972 flood that killed 125 and injured over 1100 people. Gertie Moore recalls a personal story about the Buffalo Creekduring a memorial service at the Buffalo Creek Memorial Library on Friday, Feb. 24. When the water set it down again, it just flattened out on the ground. 20 years prior to the Buffalo Creek flood, a similar incident had occurred. Coal and Labor Collection, Appalachian Collection, McConnell Library, Radford University, Radford, Virginia. I dont know where. and denies the motion for the time being while plaintiffs obtain full discovery. No evidence of an act of God was found by the Commission. We publish articles grounded in peer-reviewed research and provide free access to that research for all of our readers. Erin L. McCoy, The U.S. Has Nearly 600 Coal Waste Sites. Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password. Pierson said the school he was attending, Lorado Grade School, was destroyed in the flood, and its principal, who he identified as Mr. Ramey, was killed. Jack Spadaro, a mine safety investigator and environmental specialist, has made it his life's work to prevent such disasters from happening again. 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. He relied on depositions and additional interviews he conducted to write Everything in Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood. 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. At the outset of the hearing, Fuquay was the first witness, and the subcommittee chairman, Senator Harrison Williams (D-NJ), submitted for inclusion in the hearing record, Fuquays 225-page report, titled An Engineering Survey of Representative Coal Mine Refuse Piles as Related to the Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, Disaster. That two-part report, focusing on the failed Buffalo Creek dams and a sampling of other dangerous coal refuse dams in the region, made headlines in a few places on May 30th, 1972, the day the Senate hearings began. Residents were just awakening that Saturday morning; some entire families were still in bed. Governor Arch Moore accepted a $1 million settlement from the Pittston Coal Company related to the 1972 Buffalo Creek Flood. Pittston, meanwhile, would inform its investors that the 1974 settlement that had come with one of the survivors' lawsuits did not impact the company's profit margin. Eventually, she and her husband, Arthur, rebuilt on the same spot as the old house. In February 1968, Saunders resident Mrs. Pearl Woodrum wrote a letter of complaint to then Governor Hulett Smith saying in effect, the dams were unsafe. To counter Eriksons claims, Ewen and Lewis include survivor testimony that he neglected. In 1977, Gov. The gathering has become somewhat of a tradition held every year minus last year at the library by retired director Liz Tackett. Railroad rails were twisted, cars were everywhere, bridges were on the roads instead of over the creek.. Pittston Quits the Coal Business, Buffalo CreekFlood.org. More than a dozen homes and hundreds of acres in the down-stream community of Harriman, TN were hit with a gigantic toxic mess. Buffalo Creek Disaster; however, I have concentrated on the parts of the book that offered me the most insight in terms of procedural strategy. amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "thpohidill-20"; 93-118, Stanford Law Review, Vol. Senators and experts gather around scale model of Buffalo Creek area in Senate hearing room showing valley below and three coal waste impoundments (#s 8, 5, & 4) that burst causing catastrophic flood on February 26, 1972. For many, Eriksons book became a definitive take on Buffalo Creek, as well as Appalachian culture as a whole. Is the unique Appalachian dialect the preserved language of Elizabethan England? Mimi Pickering, my wife, made two documentary films about the disaster. At approximately 8 a.m., a coal waste dam collapsed on the Middle Fork of Buffalo Creek, releasing 132 million gallons of water, coal refuse, and silt into the narrow mountain valley. When the deluge receded, he saw bodies along the long walk to check on relatives, images that have been seared into the veterans mind. 1967The U.S. Department of Interior releases its Report on Condition The goal of MSHAs impoundment program continues to help ensure that: Impoundments constructed by the coal industry are designed to accepted dam safety standards. Pittston by then had developed a reputation for poor safety practices, and was ranked second nationally in the number of fatal and non-fatal mine accidents. Buffalo Area Declared Health, Safety Hazard, Logan Banner, March 1, 1972. 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. By September 1972, the two competing West Virginia commissions one from the Governor, and the other a Citizens Commission issued their reports. but then Gov. Citing coal industry dereliction throughout central Appalachia, they said it was imperative for Congress to investigate the industrys practice of erecting crudely-made coal refuse dams and propose legislation to prevent future disasters. 302-305. Each upstream dam was built several hundred yards upstream of the previous dam. Gerald M.Stern writes the story of The Buffalo Creek Disaster, how a coal cleaning impoundment dam burst, killing 125 people injuring more than 1000 and causing over 4000 people to be homeless. Kai Eriksons book, Everything In Its Path: Destruc-tion of Community in The Buffalo Creek Flood. 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.. Court to make the plaintiffs state their dollar damage claims with more particularity. amzn_assoc_region = "US"; Buffalo Creek Disaster is not just about heroes but a dramatic tale that involves the loss of lives and property and the legal war containing a litigation drama that resulted in the payment of the settlement. Hufford, M. (1997) The memorial marker at the mouth of Buffalo Creek naming those who died in the Buffalo Creek flood. For decades after that, fishing of any kind was no longer an option on the southern West Virginia waterway. High around 75F. 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. Betty Dotson-Lewis / Brian Sewell, The Day Baby Brucie Died: An Oral History of the Buffalo Creek Flood, The Appalachian Voice, February 27, 2012. [1] For faster navigation, this Iframe is preloading the Wikiwand page for Buffalo Creek flood. It took a mere 15 minutes to totally fail, Spadaro said. A final federal strip mine bill, however, would not be signed into law until 1977. The company was operating eight mines in the vicinity and ran all the coal through the preparation plant above the dams. February 1972. Long after the Feb. 26, 1972, disaster, the poisoned creek had no life. Ben A. Franklin, New York Times News Service, Dam Failures Common: Whos Liable for Flooding, Charleston Gazette, February 28, 1972. I finally caught hold of the railroad with one hand and pulled my myself out. When that report came out it called for new legislation and further inquiry by the local prosecutor, also concluding: Norm Williams, Deputy Director, WV-DNR & Citizens' Commission chairman. West Virginia: Disaster in the Hollow, Time, Monday, March 13, 1972. Ben A. Franklin, Flood Survivors Sue Mine Concern; Plaintiffs Ask $64-Million Seek Damages Over Survivor Syndrome; 800 Pages of Testimony; A Sound Like Thunder, New York Times, April 18, 1973. Family and Character Change at Buffalo Creek, American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1976, pp 295-299. As a result many possible . 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. Thats the year we really got cranked up, Harvey said. 300 acre-feet of water would be: Headlines from an Associated Press story reporting that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- also testifying at U.S. Senate hearings -- found the the Pittston Coal Co. dam above Buffalo Creek was "doomed from the start.". regulations forbid the closing off of any stream or the impoundment of water 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. a federal safety standard prohibiting refuse piles from impeding drainage or impounding (WCHS) MAN, W.Va. (WCHS) . (Rockefeller would later be elected governor and U.S. A U.S. Geological One lawsuit was filed by the state of West Virginia, while another class action lawsuit was filed by survivors of the flood. I enjoyed it when I was small., He said the adults decided that if they got the kids involved they wouldnt be as apt to go out and start worrying about getting on drugs or drinking and stuff like that.. Click for copy. Property damage is estimated to be upward of $50 million or more. The state had initially sued for $100 million, half of which was slated to cover cleanup and restoration expenses. 3), Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1972. It just broke your heart to see firsthand the devastation that water could do, he would tell a Herald Dispatch reporter. BMCthen builds dam #2. 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. On February 26, 1972 the Buffalo creek community was destroyed by a terrible flood. 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. damaged and destroyed bridges, roads, and schools for $50 million compensatory Jack Doyle, Buffalo Creek Disaster: 1972, 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. 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. March 2, 1973Judge Hall holds hearing on Pittstons motion to dismiss Gertie Moore, a former Logan County Schools bus driver, tearfully recalls two children who perished in the Buffalo Creek Flood during a memorial service at the Buffalo Creek Memorial Library on Friday, Feb. 24. Those who survived saw corpses everywhere. The water was there, and then it was gone, The moving wall of wastewater did its damage in seconds, in repeated fashion, as it moved down the hollow. there wasnt any flood. The "suspenseful and completely absorbing story" (San Francisco Chronicle) of how survivors of the worst coal-mining disaster in history triumphed over corporate irresponsibilitywritten by the young lawyer who took on their case and won.One Saturday morning in February 1972, an impoundment dam owned by the Pittston Coal Company burst, sending a 130 million gallon, 25 foot tidal wave of . amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; What happened after the Buffalo Creek disaster? Judge Hall ruled that the plaintiffs survivor-syndrome claims might exceed $10,000 Davis managed to rescue two of his sons, and his neighbors helped pull his 17-year-old daughter from the waters two miles down the hollow. 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. 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.. PopHistoryDig.com, January 31, 2019. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; The following morning, his wifes birthday, Harvey was on his way to pick up a cake, but police had the road blocked off. 281-298, Appalachian Journal, Vol. 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. As residents gather this weekend on the 50th anniversary of one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history, theyre also able to revel in a comeback. Judge Christie, the federal district judge originally assigned to the case, removes 2 gave way, quickly followed by Dam No. The cause of the Buffalo Creek failure was analyzed, an inventory of coal waste impoundments was compiled, and emergency inspections were conducted to identify other potentially hazardous sites. A temporary morgue was set up at an elementary school in the town of Man. Arch Moore's emergency director asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to perform recovery work at state expense. One newspaper, reporting on the study and the Senate hearings, used the headlines Army Corps of Engineers Says Dam Doomed From Start (below). I go to fire departments and teach about nuclear fallout. The legal teams on both sides also are discussing a settlement. Pierce. LOGAN COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) - It is a day to remember for Logan County. BMCfeared 1. 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. They just had this blank stare of resignation One of my co-workers said people in those coal communities are used to being battered by this and that. The outcome of the lawsuits surrounding Buffalo Creek go far in demonstrating the power divide between the haves and the have-nots in Appalachia. He spoke with residents, including a woman who said she lost eighteen relatives in the flood. When the water set it down again, it just flattened out on the ground. The number stern settled on was 32.5 million dollars. Hall agreed and the documents More than a dozen towns were inundated and 125 people lost their lives. 3/4 (SPRING/SUMMER 2009), pp. amzn_assoc_title = "Related Books & DVD"; Set during the Polish-Soviet War of 19191920, Babels novel captured the indiscriminate violence and injustice of warfare. It took just over 15 minutes. (3) U.S. Congress. 3 had been built on top of coal slurry sediment that had collected behind the earlier dams 1 and 2, not on solid bedrock. Middle Fork Buffalo Creek, Saunders, West Virginia, Volume 1, February 1973. Theres also the risk of environmental damage from coal ash, the toxic wastewater left over from burning coal at power plants. Congressman Ken Hechler (D-WV)), who also came to the area on Sunday, February 27th, told reporters that the U.S. Bureau of Mines and state agencies had failed to demonstrate sufficient concern for the protection of the safety of the people who work in the mines and live in the mining communities. Hechler also pointed to what he believed was a contributing cause of the flooding: As I looked through Buffalo Creek valley yesterday, it struck me again that the entire valley is honeycombed with strip mines and the waste from deep mines so that the soil can no longer hold the [rain] water. 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