Battle over W.Va. Coal Slurry Continues

Lawmakers meeting for this month's interim study session have been urged to support an outright ban on the underground injection of coal slurry.

A recent, long-delayed study was inconclusive as to effects of the waste left over from mining on underground water supplies. But it did help prompt a moratorium on the practice.

With a companion study on slurry's health effects pending, "members of the Sludge Safety Project told a water resources interim committee that until the health effects, if any, of coal slurry are known, the practice should be considered unsafe," The Associated Press reports.

The group also dismissed the initial study as "inadequate," arguing it "doesn’t answer essential questions about how coal waste effects ground water supplies," AP's Tom Breen writes.

Others with coverage include The Charleston Gazette and Public Broadcasting.