| Violations at a Massey Coal impoundment occurred roughly every six months over the last decade, according to the Charleston Gazette.
Billions of gallons of sludge hangs over the Marsh Fork Elementary School in Raleigh County, where the same company has positioned a coal silo within a short distance of the school.
Massey CEO Don Blankenship brought a law suit against Gov. Joe Manchin the same day the state ruled the silo is in violation of the law, being too close to the school.
The repeated safety violations of the sludge pond are listed in federal government records.
Four of the 19 violations issued since January 1995 were deemed by MSHA inspectors to be "significant and substantial," according to the agency's data.
Five of those citations were issued in the last two years. The most recent violation was cited in March 2004, according to the Charleston Gazette.
All but one of the violations involved the company's failure to comply with its own approved plan for the design and construction of the impoundment.
Massey did not challenge the citations, and paid the $2,447 in fines.
The impoundment has a 385-foot-high dam that can hold up to 2.8 billion gallons of liquid coal waste. It is just up the hollow from the Marsh Fork school.
MSHA officials would not release copies of the actual citations or inspection reports on the impoundment without a formal Freedom of Information Act request.
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