Day 2 of Clean Water Act hearing

It's happening now in Franklin Circuit Court. Follow the hearing with live tweets from Appalachian Voices and reporter Jim Bruggers of The Courier-Journal here.

The hearing resumed this morning with our side (the interveners) continuing to call witnesses, starting with Gretchen Bartley, an environmental scientist with the Division of Water. She was asked about a performance audit of one of the laboratories doing some testing for the coal companies, and the lack of training and poor quality control found. Mark Cleland, with the division of enforcement was recalled to the stand, and among other things said that different divisions within the cabinet count the number of violations differently and the department of natural resources does not cite self-reported violations.

Currently, Eric Chance with Appalachian Voices is on the stand. He has reviewed many of the monitoring reports from coal companies and documented the pattern and frequency of Clean Water Act violations.

Coal company and cabinet lawyers are objecting to much of the questioning.

You can read about what happened yesterday through media reports:

• Ronnie Ellis in the Daily Independent


• Beth Musgrave in the Lexington Herald-Leader


• Jim Bruggers in The Courier-Journal