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WEST VIRGINIA MINE OPERATOR SENTENCED
Release Date: 01/15/99
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FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 1999
WEST VIRGINIA MINE OPERATOR SENTENCED
Wayne H. Fortney, Jr., of Morgantown, W.Va., a principal owner and president of Valley Mining Co. Inc., was sentenced to six months of confinement and was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine on Dec. 17, 1998 by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia in Clarksburg. The defendant previously pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the Clean Water Act (CWA). Fortney violated the conditions of his CWA discharge permit by allowing acid mine drainage to be discharged into Maple Run in Monongalia County, W. Va., between Oct. 8, 1991 and Sept. 25, 1992. He also violated his permit by discharging acidic water from a collecting pond at the Valley Mining Project site on March 23, 1992. The case was investigated by the EPA Criminal Investigation Division, the FBI, the West Virginia Division of Environmental Protection, and was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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