Mountaintop Mining Settlements In Ky., Tenn.

DYLAN T. LOVAN

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A coal company has agreed to pay $250,000 to restore an eastern Kentucky watershed altered by a controversial mining practice known as mountaintop removal.

The Sierra Club and the environmental group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth sued Clintwood Elkhorn Mining in federal court in September, alleging the company illegally dumped mining waste into a stream valley in Pike County. The company acknowledged dumping the fill material without a Clean Water Act permit.

Clintwood's parent company, TECO Energy Inc. of Tampa, Fla., said in a statement Wednesday that the matter was "amicably resolved." ...