Buffalo Creek

THE DAM BROKE SHORTLY after 8:00 on a Saturday morning. On February 26, 1972, a wall of mining waste and water estimated at 30- to 50-feet-high roared down Logan County's Buffalo Hollow and through the West Virginia villages of Lorado, Riley, Braeholm, Accoville, Pardee, and Man.

Down the 17-mile valley poured 130 million gallons of water, sludge, cars, houses, trees, bodies, and more. When it was over, 80 percent of the 2,200 homes in the valley were gone or uninhabitable,[Page 114] thousands of people were homeless, many lost all their possessions, 16 communities were destroyed, and 125 people were killed.

Pittston Coal Company bought the dam in 1970 and continued the common practice of piling mine refuse, mostly coarse coal fragments and shale, across valleys to get rid of the waste and provide settling ponds for water purification. The water level of the mile-long body of acidic water behind the dam had been alarmingly high after three days of heavy rain combined with melting snow. According to William Davies, the U.S. Geological Survey geologist investigating the disaster, the company decided to cut a spillway through the top to try to increase the dam's stability. Unfortunately this weakened the dam instead, and released 20 million cubic feet of thick, sludgy water that raced down the valley at speeds of nearly 30 miles-per-hour. It was weeks before all the bodies were found, some of them miles downstream.

Investigation into the causes of the flood, one of the worst coal-mining disasters in U.S. history, brought allegations of faulty construction of the dam, including violation of several state and federal building codes. Officials were accused of not showing the dam on maps given to the West Virginia Mines Department. Also accused of unwittingly contributing was the Bureau of Mines which failed to enforce federal prohibition against refuse banks, and the West Virginia Public Service Commission which did not enforce dam-construction permit laws. A special Logan County grand jury, however, decided that no criminal charges should be brought against these parties.

Reporting that they still faced feelings of guilt, nightmares, and other terrors, survivors sued the Pittston Company, asking for recompense for “psychic impairment” as well as property loss. Pittston Coal representatives, almost immediately after the disaster, had claimed the flood was an “act of God” and therefore not the company's responsibility. However, an out-of-court settlement in 1972 provided 625 adult survivors $13,500,000. A class-action suit was also filed against Pittston Company on behalf of 348 children who survived the Buffalo Creek flood. In June 1974, this suit was settled out of court for $4,800,000. Presiding U.S. District Judge John Copenhaver, Jr., ruled that five children in utero at the time of the flood should share in the settlement because of an indication by medical evidence that unborn children could be affected by psychological trauma. Other survivors settled with the company independently.

Before leaving office in 1977, the West Virginia governor, Arch Alfred Moore, Jr., signed a settlement with Pittston for the coal-mining company to pay West Virginia $1 million for clean-up costs resulting from the flood. In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court required West Virginia to pay the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers $10 million, including $5.8 million in interest, for clean-up and relief efforts by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers following the Buffalo Creek flood.

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