 August is hot, and so are the savings at Appalachian Wireless, where all smartphones are 50% off. Even the 64, 128, and 256-gig models, two-year agreement required. Better service, bigger savings. That's today's Appalachian Wireless and East Kentucky Network Company. Portions of Lower Johns Creek and Pike County near Pikeville ran dark for several hours Thursday. The murky gray water was the result of a cold slurry spill into Johns Creek from the nearby Excel mining operation at Scotts Branch along Kentucky 194. The spill was caused by a leak in a pipe containing the slurry, which is a byproduct of the process of washing newly-mined coal. Containment efforts began quickly, but the spill resulted in a dark plume in Johns Creek, extending more than five miles long. Kentucky Division of Water Personnel were on the scene, taking water samples. One DOW representative said the agency was, at the time, monitoring the situation and containment efforts. U.S. Army Corps of Engineer Personnel were also monitoring the spill. Johns Creek is one of the tributaries of Dewey Lake in Prestonsburg. The spill occurred off-project property, but it is the major waterway into the lake. So we just wanted to go out and see what the status of the size of the spill and the cleanup efforts, and to see if they were going to have it contained before it got to the lake. It has not and doesn't appear that it's going to, so that's good. It was a relatively small spill, and they got on it pretty quickly. The amount of slurry spilled into Johns Creek remains unknown, but a mine official who declined to go on camera said the leak that caused the spill was fixed before noon Thursday. The mining company made sure they had a spill team on site and started to contain the spill as quickly as possible. The company reported it right away and stopped the source and had the response team out there quickly to minimize the damage or impact that the spill had. EKB News reporters Shannon Deskins and Sean Allen contributed to this report. In Johns Creek, Chris Anderson, EKB News.