Word: buffalo
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...there was 500 tons of waste and slate and crap going into the ponds behind the dams every day, and so they silted up pretty quick. By February, 1972, the largest one over on Middle Fork, a tributary of Buffalo Creek, had been built: 100 feet high and 600 feet across...
...26th of February, 1972, 3.72 inches of rain fell on Logan County, West Virginia--not unusual as the state climatologist would later testify. But it was enough, because there were no spillways built into the dam. On the morning of the 26th, Steve Dasovich, head of operations at the Buffalo mine, sent bulldozers to relieve pressure on the dam. It was too late for that, though. When they got to the dam a little before 7 a.m., it was gone. And 21 million cubic feet of water and God knows how many tons of mud and slag and crap were...
Steve Dasovich later admitted under oath that the tragedy could have been avoided if a drain ditch had been built. The construction would have meant closing down Buffalo's No. 5 mine for a few weeks, curtailing production. You do not get where Steve Dasovich is by curtailing production...
...disaster; the committee turned up damaging evidence against the company.) Pittston said nothing, except that the disaster was an "act of God," although a Pittston lawyer told Ben Franklin of The New York Times that "in the long term, the responsibility rests with Pittston." But the people of Buffalo Creek, the survivors, knew where to affix the blame--it was God all right, they said: the Almighty Dollar...
...lawyer with the Justice Dept. In 1972 he was, to put it frankly, looking for a cause: Arnold & Porter, the big Washington law firm where he worked, allowed some of its lawyers to tackle their own public interest cases every year. It was his year, and in Buffalo Creek's survivors he found his cause. For the more than 600 people he would represent, Stern and the lawyers who worked under him would win one of the largest judgments of all time--$13.5 million. He would also gain Arnold & Porter a fee of $3 million, something he doesn't tell...