During the first week of September, 2020, the week before Labor Day, construction slurry from a Dominion Energy fiber-optic drilling operation in Haymarket, VA was transported across state lines and dumped illegally on several sites in southern Berkeley County, WV.
At one dump site alone, over 30 loads of construction drilling mud were dumped into a gully that feeds Specks Run, a tributary of Opequon Creek, a prime trout fishing stream. The land is privately owned, but accessible through a Dominion Energy right-of-way. The spill covers a total stream length of over 1.5 miles, all the way to the confluence with the Opequon.
On Friday, Sept. 3, Bert Groves, a landowner along Specks Run, noticed that the creek was running exceptionally muddy, and on further inspection discovered the slurry-filled gully and downstream contaminant, filling the creek from “bank to bank”. Groves contacted various local and state agencies and finally got WV the attention of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. They arrived the next day, and immediately ordered the dumping stopped.
Steve Bauserman, current president of The Opequon Watershed, is another landowner with property along both Specks Run and Opequon Creek. He believes the visible damage to Specks Run, while considerable, only scratches the surface of the problem, and a multi-year remediation program may be called for.
Brent Walls, who is leading the investigation for the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, says he has never seen such extensive and concentrated devastation, and notes that this flagrantly illegal act will have profound effects throughout the watershed, which extends to the Potomac River.
WVDEP is orchestrating a cleanup operation among the various parties involved: Dominion Energy contractor Laney Directional Drilling, out of Texas; B&D Water Hauling out of Ohio; and Miller Environmental of Martinsburg, West Virginia (Miller, a remediation firm, has since left the project).
While the cleanup continues, with crews working seven days a week, little more than a trickle of water runs over the massive mudslide, up to two feet deep, that fills the creek bed.
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