Project Summary

Senate Concurrent Resolution 15 resolves that the Department of Environmental Protection shall design and conduct, or else contract, a comprehensive study on the effects of underground injection of coal slurry. Two components of this project have been addressed in the Phase I study.

• I-A. An analysis of the chemical composition of some coal slurry resources has been conducted, including an inventory of organic and inorganic compounds.
• I-B. A hydrogeological study of the migration of coal slurry or its constituent contaminants from chosen injection wells into the ground waters or surface waters of West Virginia has been conducted.

There will always be a need for additional data on these important topics. Phase II, as mandated by Senate Concurrent Resolution 15, is designed to use these Phase I data to address the following five issues.

• II-A. What are the known health hazards of the components of coal slurry (its major constituent contaminants) on human health? This assessment will be useful in the event that human exposure occurs following slurry underground injection. This component of the review does not presume that sufficient exposures to cause health hazards actually exist. It simply reviews what are the population health hazards should such exposure occur.
• II-B. What data already exist about human community health hazards from exposures to coal slurries contaminating water, soil, or air? This part of the Phase II study will review existing local, national, or international literature to determine what is currently known about data to determine the actual known or reported effects of coal slurry and its constituent contaminants on public health in communities, where it is determined that coal slurry or its constituent contaminants have migrated from injection sites into ground waters currently or historically used for domestic purposes, or habitated soils, and then into humans, or into air in breathing zones of communities and then into humans.
• II-C. The study will briefly recapitulate what is known about effects of coal slurry injection on surface water and aquatic systems. This phase of the assessment project is directed at known human health effects, whereas this Phase II study is designed primarily as a human health risk assessment. Therefore, this section will be a brief overview, and is structured primarily as a human health assessment.
• II-D. Coal slurry injection is not the only choice for disposing of coal slurry. Therefore, a relevant question is, How do the known or suspected hazards of injection compare to other means of dealing with slurry from coal operations? This section of the document will briefly describe and compare what is known about coal slurry injection compared to hazards of coal slurry as surface impoundments.
• II-E. This Phase II study is very unlikely to represent a final word on this topic. It is important to review the question, What do we not yet know that will be important to learn? This section of the report will enumerate and, if possible, describe the significance of data gaps.