"DEP Revokes Water Lab’s Certification After Guilty Plea"

"West Virginia regulators have revoked the state certification for a Raleigh County laboratory, following the guilty plea of a lab supervisor who admitted he and other employees falsified coal industry samples so mining operations would appear to be in compliance with water pollution standards.

The action by the state Department of Environmental Protection comes two weeks after John W. Shelton of Appalachian Laboratories Inc. pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to violate the Clean Water Act.

'We revoked them,' said Linda Keller, program manager for lab certification at the DEP’s Division of Water and Waste Management. 'There’s an order that has gone out already.'"

Ken Ward Jr. reports for the Charleston Gazette October 22, 2014.