The son of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and the manager of the Birmingham coke plant owned by his family were held in contempt by a federal judge last week for not cooperating with local environmental groups’ pre-trial requests in the groups’ pollution lawsuit.
James “Jay” Justice III, the son of Jim Justice and president of the Justice-family owned Bluestone Coke, also did not appear for a hearing last week in the lawsuit from Black Warrior Riverkeeper and the Greater-Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution (GASP) alleging the coke company made nearly 400 water pollution violations at the Birmingham plant, which has been closed for more than three years amid air pollution infractions.
The younger Justice and Donald Wiggins, the manager of Bluestone Coke, failed to comply with several court orders to produce responses to Black Warrior Riverkeeper and GASPS’ discovery requests and to set dates to be deposed, according to U.S. District Court Judge R. David Proctor’s contempt order.
“Bluestone Coke, LLC, Donald Wiggins, and James ‘Jay’ Justice, III are found to be in civil contempt for failure to comply with this court’s … [o]rders,” Proctor wrote in the order issued Thursday in federal court in Birmingham.
Proctor gave the defendants until Sept. 11 pay the environmental groups’ “reasonable costs and fees” and respond to the plaintiffs’ discovery and other requests in order to “purge the contempt.”
Lawyers for Black Warrior Riverkeeper and GASPS said the defendants were not in compliance with the order as of Monday.
Efforts to reach an attorney for the defendants were unsuccessful.
The lawsuit, alleging violations of the Clean Water Act, claims the Birmingham coke plant has “continually discharged unpermitted pollutants into Five Mile Creek and its tributary.”
The environmental groups said they documented 392 times that Bluestone itself reported violations of the Clean Water Act.
Last year, the Jefferson County Board of Health said the company owed an additional $356,000 in penalties and late fees for failure to comply with a 2022 settlement over air pollution violations at the plant. In 2022, Bluestone Coke agreed to pay $925,000 in penalties, the largest fine ever issued by the Jefferson County Board of Health, which regulates air pollution in Birmingham.
As of May, the company was approximately $300,000 behind on its payment schedule as of, and continues to rack up late penalties for missed payments. The necessary improvements to reopen the plant have not been made, and it remains idle.
