Patriot, Environmentalists Report Agreement On Selenium

Ken Ward has reported  in the Charleston Gazette that environmentalists, led by Joe Lovett, have reached agreement with Patriot Coal Company about restructuring the selenium treatment obligations at Patriot mines. Patriot, which is struggling to get out of  bankruptcy, settled  Clean Water Act citizen suits last year by agreeing to  perform significant selenium treatment at their mines.  Those treatment costs are evidently one of the stumbling blocks to Patriot's emergence from bankruptcy.  As Ken reports:

At the end of 2011, Patriot listed its selenium liabilities as $196 million. In a quarterly filing on Aug. 9, Patriot added another $307 million to that amount. After accounting for accrued expenses, the company's reported selenium treatment liability was listed as $440 million.

That requires selling lots of coal just to pay for selenium treatment.  It will be interesting to see how the agreement is structured.