Introduction

This Work Plan (Plan) was developed to comply with sectionW.13@) of the Administrative Order on Consent (Order) enteredinto by Martin County Coal Corp (MCCC) and the United StatesEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Docket No. CWA-,04-01-1012. The Order was issued under section 309(a) of theClean Water Act (CWA), 33 U.S.C. $5 1251 et. seq. in response toa release of slurry from the 72-acre MCCC Big Branch Coal Ref-use Impoundment (Impoundment) in Martin County, Kentucky(KY). The Order stipulates, in part, that MCCC is to: 1) removeWaste Materials that have been discharged into waters of theUnited States and associated watershed areas; 2) restore the im-pacted waters and watersheds; and 3) mitigate any temporary orpermanent losses of waters of the United States. References topertinent Order provisions appearing in this Work Plan are setforth in parentheses.

MCCC is a multi-seam surface and underground mining operationlocated at Latitude 37” 44’ 40” and Longitude 82” 33’ 34” in Mar-tin County, Kentucky, near the headwaters of Wolf Creek andColdwater Fork of Rockcastle Creek and approximately 7 milessouth of the City of Inez. A portion of the mined coal is processedin a coal preparation plant by conventional heavy media methodsand part is thermally dried before shipment. Process wastewaterand fine refuse material, commonly referred to as slurry, histori-cally have been stored in the Impoundment.

On Wednesday, October 11,2000, the Impoundment experienced asudden and unexpected breach, releasing millions of gallons ofslurry into two adjacent surface water drainage bodies. The releaseeventually entered Wolf Creek, Coldwater Fork, Rockcastle Creek,Tug Fork River, and the Big Sandy River (Figure 1). MCCC re-sponded to the incident and conducted intensive cleanup operationsunder the direction of a Unified Command (UC) composed of rep-resentatives from EPA Regions 3 and 4, United States CoastGuard, Federal Office of Surface Mining, United States Fish andWildlife Service (USF&WS), United States Army Corps of Engi-

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neers, other federal agencies, the KY Department of Fish andWildlife, KY Division of Water, KY Emergency Response Team,KY Division of Surface Mining and Reclamation Enforcement,KY Division of Emergency Management, West Virginia (WV) Di-vision of Environmental Protection, WV Division of Natural Re-sources, and Martin County Emergency Services. As of February2001, slurry deposits have been removed from approximately 15miles of streambed, banks, and floodplain areas along ColdwaterFork, Wolf Creek, and their tributaries. Cleanup operations arecontinuing on portions of Coldwater Fork and the lower WolfCreek.

Anticipated activities in connection with the release include com-pletion of removal activities on Wolf Creek, restoration of im-pacted areas in the Coldwater Fork and Wolf Creek watershedsThyassessment of any remaining deposits in Rockcastle Creek, TugFork, and the Big Sandy River, and other tasks as outlined in thisWork Plan.

1 .l Project ObjectivesThe goal of the various activities outlined in the Order is to containthe additional release of waste materials, assess predesignated im-pacted areas, establish cleanup criteria and develop restoration andmitigation measures for implementation, as appropriate, for spe-cific stream segments (Order, ~W.l2(c)). This Work Plan definesthe basic project framework.

The Work Plan divides the site into five distinct stream segments:

n Coldwater Fork-Includes Old Road Fork from where theslurry exited at the No. 2 North Mains Portal to its confluencewith the Coldwater Fork and downstream to the Cam Weir (lo-cated upstream of Moore Branch) (Figure 2)

n Rockcastle Creek-Includes the portion of Coldwater Forkfrom the Cam Weir to the confluence with Rockcastle Creekand the remaining length of Rockcastle Creek to its confluencewith Tug Fork (Figure 3).

n Wolf Creek-Includes the Big Andy Branch from where theslurry entered at the South Mains Branch Portal to it’s conflu-ence with Panther Fork, Panther Fork’s confluence with WolfCreek, and downstream to Wolf Creek’s confluence with theTug Fork. This segment is further divided into the upper Wolfand lower Wolf. The demarcation between these two segmentsis the confluence with Carcass Branch (Figure 4)

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n Tug Fork-Includes the segment of Tug Fork from the conflu-ence of Wolf Creek to the beginning of the Big Sandy at theFort Gay Lock and Dam (Figure 5).

n Big Sandy-Beginning at the Fort Gay Lock and Dam to theBig Sandy River’s confluence with the Ohio River in Catlett-burg, KY (Figure 6).

These areas, which are further defined in subsequent sections, havedifferent characteristics that pose different potential risks and arelikely to require different removal objectives. Project objectiveswill be defined on the basis of these five areas of investigation.

1.2 Organization of the Work PlanThis plan is designed to establish the framework for completing theassessment, removal, and restoration of watersheds of concern.This process will consist of six major activities: 1) initial evalua-tion of existing data; 2) completion of a Screening-level EcologicalRisk Assessment (SERA) to establish cleanup criteria; 3) assess-ment and implementation of necessary removal activities as re-quired to meet cleanup criteria; 4) implementation of restorationprocedures; 5) restoration maintenance, monitoring, and compen-satory mitigation; and 6) reporting. These activities are describedin this Work Plan.

The following sections of this Work Plan are briefly summarizedbelow:

n Section 2: Site Description. This section describes the gen-eral site location and the five main areas of investigation. Dis-cussions on regional hydrology, local land use, sensitive andprotected species, and ecological resources at potential risk areprovided. The facility’s operations and history of the release arealso described.

n Section 3: Regulatory Framework. This section discussesOrder requirements and the intention between MCCC and thevarious regulatory agencies overseeing the removal, restoration,and mitigation activities being implemented pursuant to theOrder. A description of the roles and responsibilities of MCCCand some of the key regulatory agencies is also provided in thissection

a Section 4: Removal and Assessment Activities. This sectionlists and briefly describes the removal actions conducted to

date, the ongoing removal and assessment activities that arecurrently underway, and a summary of data that has been gath-ered or is being assembled.

n Section 5: Objectives and Criteria. This section discussesthe rationale for investigating the areas of concern and the pre-liminary removal action objectives relative to the preliminaryevaluation criteria that have been developed to date.

a Section 6: Assessment Implementation. This section de-scribes the general scope of the planned assessment activities,including the development of a Sampling Plan (SP), the im-plementation of planned field assessment activities, the evalua-tion of mobilization and deposition mechanisms, and the de- _velopment of a Screening-level Ecological Risk Assessment(SERA).

m Section 7: Restoration Procedures. This section provides adescription of the preliminary Stream/Floodplain RestorationPlan (SRP) submitted to the SACS Team in February 2001, thepotential expansion of this plan to cover additional areas, andthe procedures to be used for restoration, maintenance, andmonitoring.

a Section 8: Restoration, Maintenance, Monitoring, andCompensatory Mitigation. This section provides an outlineof restoration, maintenance, and monitoring programs, andoutlines the compensatory mitigation program.

a Section 9: Reporting. This section describes the reports to besubmitted for compliance with the Order as well as other an-ticipated documents needed to conduct the activities describedin this Plan

n Section 10: Project Management. This section presents theproject organization including personnel, and describes theschedule of activities.

n Section 11: References. This section contains the referencesused in the preparation of this Work Plan.

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The following documents to be provided by MCCC are under-development and will supplement this Work Plan:

n The Sampling Plan,

n The Screening-level Ecological Risk Assessment (SERA), and

n The Stream/Floodplain Restoration Plan (SRP).

Incorporated as Attachment A to this plan is the site-specificHealth and Safety Plan.