In the shadow of some of America’s most controversial coal mines, where companies use huge amounts of explosives to blow the tops off mountains, isolated communities say their water has been poisoned.
The taps in her house have been worn down, her washing machine frequently stops working, and her bathroom and kitchen have been stained a deep, bloody orange by the pollutants – iron, sulphur, even arsenic – that have seeped into her home’s water supply.
"This is what we have to live with," Casey says.
"I’ve been here all my life, but when the surface [coal] mine came in that’s when the water started changing," says Jack, who, despite being a miner himself, believes the industry is accountable for his family’s water problems.
This process is a type of surface mining known as mountaintop removal, and has drawn the ire not only of nearby residents but environmental groups who say it devastates the landscape and pollutes the waterways.
‘Don’t take away our healthcare’ says Trump country "When you dump a lot of overburden into the valley, and start covering up streams, you have water sources that end up travelling through the [waste] material,’ says Professor Michael McCawley, an environmental engineer who has spent time researching the health impacts of mountaintop removal.
Jason now cooks with bottled water, but he has been collecting water from a nearby stream and treating it with swimming pool chemicals to supply his house.
"We view ourselves as pretty good neighbours and if somebody has an issue then we would address it," said the spokesman for CM Energy, which took over the mine in 2017.
When presented with the complaints of nearby residents, the spokesman declined to take responsibility and said the water contamination could have been caused by a number of different issues.
"If you don’t work in the coal mines you either flip burgers or you have to move out of state and do something else."

The state health department has been aware for at least three years that high levels of industrial toxin known as PFOA, used in non-stick cookware and other products, had contaminated the drinking water in the Rensselaer County community of Hoosick Falls.
A similar chemical, known as PFOS, has been detected in a reservoir that serves as the water supply for Newburgh, a city of 29,000 people.
The pressure for New York to act independently of federal regulators increased this week after Politico, an online news site, cited unnamed sources in reporting that the Trump administration is steering the Environmental Protection Agency to set no limits for PFOS and PFOA in drinking water.
“Governor Cuomo has said for over three years now that if the federal government does not establish a drinking water standard then New York would,” said Judith Enck, who in the former Obama administration was the Northeast region administrator for the EPA.
“The New York health department is painfully slow, and other states are now speeding by them” with efforts to set limits on the toxins in tap water.
“Federal inaction is not stopping New York from protecting its citizens from unregulated chemicals in drinking water,” said Silk, citing recommendations for proposed standards issued by the New York’s Drinking Water Quality Councli.
“Americans have a right to know how much, if any, of this chemical is in their drinking water,” Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-Rhinebeck, said in a letter to Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
Delgado said EPA should address the levels of the toxins in the agency’s water management plan.
Enck and the other activists said the health department should now put those standards in regulation.
Zucker has pointed out that the EPA is responsible for setting regulatory limits under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

Tony Evers will call for allowing state environmental and agricultural officials to borrow nearly $70 million more over the next two years to combat water pollution and replace lead pipes in his first state budget, following through on his pledge to attack drinking water contamination during his first year in office.
Evers is expected to unveil the full two-year spending plan on Feb. 28 but gave The Associated Press a broad preview of his water quality initiatives.
It’s unclear how the proposals will go over with Republicans who control the Legislature.
State agriculture officials would be allowed to borrow another $3 million over two years to fund grants to farmers for building infrastructure that reduces pollution from agriculture.
Evers also wants to spend an additional $300,000 on studies on water pollution management and implementing new manure-spreading restrictions the DNR enacted last year along Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan shoreline, where porous Silurian bedrock allows contaminants to seep into groundwater more easily.
"Increased funding for northeast Wisconsin’s (Silurian bedrock) areas would help farmers implement the new performance standards," she said in an email.
A November survey by the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Geological Survey found 42 percent of 301 randomly selected wells in Iowa, Grant and Lafayette counties exceed federal standards for bacteria.
Replacing a single line can cost thousands of dollars.
Evers pointed to the problems in his State of the State address last month, declaring 2019 the year of clean drinking water .
Republican reaction to Evers’ declaration in his speech was guarded.

Re: California’s unfulfilled promise on access to safe water Supplying residents and businesses with clean, affordable, high quality water is priority one for water districts and cities throughout California.
In Riverside and San Bernardino counties, water agencies and regional planners work to ensure customers have access to safe, clean and reliable water.
Through state-of-the-art treatment plants, around-the-clock testing and innovative technologies, regional water suppliers such as Eastern Municipal Water District, Western Municipal Water District, Riverside Public Utilities, and San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District provide our customers with the highest quality water available that exceeds all state standards.
As leaders in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, we have seen the issue of groundwater contamination firsthand.
Through long-term planning and investments, we have cleaned up local groundwater supplies where necessary, enhanced access to reliable groundwater and imported supplies, and continue to invest in the needs of our communities.
We will continue working together to deliver fresh, clean drinking water safely to you and your family, and plan for the needs of this growing region.
The solution will include governance reforms and consolidations of extremely small systems that are unable to achieve the economies of scale necessary to address contamination and treatment-related issues.
Water agencies, cities, and business organizations across the state have proposed a funding solution that does not impose a tax on urban water users and, when coupled with the governance reforms, establishes a sound process for repairing unusable drinking water systems.
This package of funds is an appropriate way to address this key social issue rather than taxing our water customers that have already invested in their local water systems.
These funds should be vetted as a viable solution along with a plan to help unusable drinking water systems become operational again.

BAGHDAD, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) — Prime Minister of Iraq Adel Abdul Mahdi on Sunday said that solving river water pollution issue is a priority for the new government, calling on exploiting rainfall water to increase reserves.
"Solving water pollution issue resembles a priority to the new government since its formation,"a statement from Abdul Mahdi’s media office quoted him as saying.
"We have taken correct and reassuring steps regarding the issue, in addition to implementing plans to limit water contamination and guaranteeing the optimal utilization of water resources," he added.
Last year, thousands of people were hospitalized due to water contamination in Iraq’s oil-rich southern province of Basra, some 550 km south the Iraqi capital Baghdad, as poisonous undrinkable drinking water caused several illnesses and fueled raging protests in the province.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) — The United States space agency NASA’s lunar orbiter has observed the landing site of China’s Chang’e-4 lunar probe for the second time and in a higher definition.
NASA announced Friday that its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) acquired a new shot on Chang’e-4 landing site the day after it did so on Jan. 30.
This time, LRO, a NASA spacecraft orbiting the Moon, moved closer to the floor of Von Karman crater and tilted to capture the Yutu-2 rover in two pixels just north of the lander, according to NASA.
The rover was not discernible and the Chang’e-4 lander was only a few pixels across in its first shot.
Chang’e-4 probe comprises a lander and a rover, and the rover is smaller than the lander.
In the picture released by LRO’s scientific team from Arizona University on Friday, Chang’e-4 lander and rover nestled among craters on the floor of Von Karman crater.

Ludhiana Ludhiana: Once again the issues of overflowing sewers and contaminated water supply were raised during the House meeting that had continued for five hours today.
2 Gurmail Singh alleged that there were major problems of contaminated water supply and choked sewers in his ward.
No patchwork has been carried out to repair potholes as big as 3 foot long on the road for the past one year, he added.
Lok Insaaf Party councillor from Ward No.
36 Harvinder Singh Kaler said: “When will we conduct discussions on other issues as the civic body had failed to solve the problems of overflowing sewers and contaminated water supply.
Meanwhile, councillor Gurdeep Singh Neetu demanded a check on violations at "vehras".
BJP councillor from Ward No.
Mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu asked the officials to attend to the phone calls of all councillors, otherwise MC House would pass a resolution to dismiss the erring officials.
The Opposition councillors asked the Mayor to take action against such officials who ignored his instructions.
A few councillors urged House to set up street vending zones at the earliest.

Speaking at the Pentagon on Thursday, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer told reporters that he made the decision earlier this week after the Navy judged it had “exhausted our avenue of satisfaction for the claimants.” He cited three separate legal rationales — including a 2016 district court decision related to the principle of sovereign immunity, an exemption to the Federal Tort Claims Act and the Feres doctrine — for why he made the decision after his own review and at the advice of the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps, Navy General Counsel, and the Department of Justice.
Two drinking wells at Lejeune — one of the Marine Corps’ largest bases — were found to be contaminated with industrial chemicals in 1984 and 1985 before they were shuttered.
Spencer said his decision this week has “no impact” on those benefits.
One of the chemicals that contaminated drinking water at Lejeune was Trichloroethylene, more commonly known as TCE.
The chemical is used to degrease metal and is listed as a “known human carcinogen” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency.
For the last 20 years, more than 4,000 claims of adverse health effects related to the water contamination have been filed against the Navy “with new claims submitted literally every week,” Spencer said.
The VA has linked the following eight diseases to exposure to the contaminants in Lejeune’s water supply during that 34-year period: adult leukemia, aplastic anemia and other myelodysplastic syndromes, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer, multiple myeloma, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Parkinson’s disease.
“This is a difficult decision to be very frank with you,” Spencer said, adding, “This is not a happy outcome but it is fact that we had to decide on to move on.” The secretary emphasized that service members and veterans affected by the water contamination receive healthcare and disability benefits and that they can now seek other remedies through congressional action.
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DENVER – A bill to make clean water in Colorado a priority passed the Rural Affairs and Agricultural committee Monday.
The bill, sponsored by Representative Barbara McLachlan and Representative Dylan Roberts, looks to help prevent water pollution from future hardrock mining operations in the state.
“Mining is central to Colorado’s history and always has been,” Rep. Roberts said.
“However, our state’s clean water must be a high priority.
This bill ensures that protecting our state’s precious water resources from high risks of pollutions is a top priority for future hardrock mining permits.” Mining operations have polluted over 1,600 miles of Colorado rivers and streams.
Colorado is one of seven states that allows “self-bonding,” which allows mines to operate with insufficient recoverable assets, leaving taxpayers vulnerable to potential cleanup costs.
“When there are mining accidents, taxpayers foot the bill and also suffer the consequences of the damage to the environment,” said Rep. McLachlan, whose district was impacted by the 2015 Gold King Mine spill.
The bill would end self-bonding for hardrock mines in Colorado and would explicitly include water quality protection.
It would also require mining license applications to set an end date for the cleanup of their operation.
The bill passed the committee 7-4 and is headed to the House floor.

Students are being served bottled water while several government offices work with the school to treat its water for high levels of arsenic and fluoride.
Though a physician’s report supported students’ claims that rashes on their skin was linked to the water contamination, Margot Chappel, deputy administrator for regulatory and planning services for the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health, said a state epidemiologist found that evidence of the link was inconclusive.
According to a December report from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the facility’s water, which comes from a well, had fluoride levels measuring 2.9 milligrams per liter, above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s recommendation that drinking water not exceed 2.0 milligrams per liter of fluoride.
The school’s water supply contained 0.032 milligrams per liter of arsenic, three times above the EPA’s recommended 0.01 milligrams per liter, though that falls below the EPA’s former cutoff of 0.05 milligrams per liter.
Updated in 2001, the newest recommendation came after the agency found that the benefits of treating water to attain lower levels of arsenic, also found naturally in the soil, outweighed the costs of treatment, Gerrity said.
“It would be costly to achieve.” Under 0.05 milligrams per liter, the EPA does not anticipate that arsenic-contaminated water would cause short-term effects.
At its highest, the arsenic levels in the water sat at 0.104 milligrams per liter.
The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Division of Environmental Protection has been working with Northwest Academy since January 2017 to treat its water for contaminants, spokeswoman JoAnn Kittrell said in an emailed statement Monday.
The health department gave parents and guardians the opportunity to pull students from the school Thursday, Chappel said.
“I flew at 6 in the morning on Thursday from Reno to Las Vegas and drove out to the Amargosa Valley with the explicit purpose of looking to see if the place should be shut down,” Chappel said Monday.

CHARLESTON, W. Va. — Under pressure from a specific Charleston manufacturer, a state Senate committee has moved to delay updating human health criteria in water-quality rules.
Clean-water advocates hope for more support in the House.
It voted to delay implementation of new allowable levels for nearly 60 potentially toxic pollutants until 2021.
"There are legislators on both sides of the aisle who feel pressure from particular entities who are saying, ‘if we’re forced to comply with this right now, we might not be here next year,’” Ireland said.
“Certainly no legislator wants to hear that."
The Environmental Protection Agency issued regular updates for about 100 water pollutants almost four years ago, as required by the Clean Water Act.
The state Department of Environmental Protection folded 60 of the new allowable levels into its annual rules legislation, but the proposal has proven controversial.
Ireland said the threat of losing jobs carries a lot of weight with lawmakers.
Ireland said state employment records show jobs at the company already declining.
According to the DEP, about two-thirds of the rule updates would mean tighter pollution limits, while one-third would loosen permitted levels.