TUSCALOOSA COUNTY, Ala. (WIAT) - Walter Energy's North River Mine discovered the leak Friday, according to company spokesperson Michael Monahan.
He says the material that was released is non-hazardous and is primarily water with approximately one quarter of the volume being fine rock particles.
Monahan says they don't know how much waste material got into the tributaries of the North River. The release has temporarily discolored the river in the immediate vicinity of the mine.
They've located and stopped the leak and are working with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and the Alabama Surface Mining Commission to determine the scale of the problem. According to Monahan they are using vacuum trucks and small, temporary dams to keep any more discharge from getting into the tributaries.
The North River flows into Lake Tuscaloosa which is the source of Tuscaloosa's drinking water. Concerned environmental and educational groups are doing their own water testing.
"My greatest fear is what we don't know. We've done some preliminary tests and those tests don't show anything bad. It's the things that we don't know at this point. We don't know anything about heavy metals; we don't know anything about conductivity, or the other things that we can't test in the field very accurately. And so the long term effects...it seems that there's very fine clay particulate, fine sediment, and so this is going to be around for a while. Even when it settles out in this part of the river, when we get high water events it's going to wash downstream and continue to be a problem for some time," said Randy Mecredy, Director of the Alabama Museum of Natural History.
Environmentalist Nelson Brooke believes it's only a matter of time before the contaminated water reaches Lake Tuscaloosa. He is also worried about what the discharge could mean long term, but says the short term situation is bad enough.
"Just alone this excess amount of solids suspended in the water is going to make it really difficult for fish to breathe, but we don't know what all will be the effects of this," said Nelson Brooke, Black Warrior Riverkeeper. "These kind of clay-like suspended particles can stay in suspension for days or weeks or months so there's no telling how long the North River is going to look like this. Ultimately we're very concerned about the impact that this is going to have on Lake Tuscaloosa downstream, Tuscaloosa's drinking water. It's not really a matter of if this is going to reach the lake, but when."
Scott Sanderford, Manager of the Lakes Division of the Tuscaloosa Water Board, says they are keeping an eye on the situation.
