WASHINGTON — An award-winning coal-mining activist was questioned for 45 minutes by police on suspicion of child pornography after U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn’s energy and mineral resources subcommittee decided a photo she submitted of a child in foul bathwater was inappropriate.

Maria Gunnoe of West Virginia had been invited by Lamborn — a Colorado Springs Republican and the subcommittee’s chairman — to testify at his hearing Friday on the Spruce Coal Mine in her state. It was the fourth time Gunnoe had been in front of the committee and the second time she had been there at the behest of Lamborn.

Gunnoe, a grandmother, said that when she has spoken to the committee previously, she never felt as if members made eye contact, so she decided to bring a photo by a freelance photojournalist of a child taking a bath in dirty water — allegedly polluted by coal mining — to put up on the panels above her head.

“I was drawn to the photo because I think it really captured what happened here,” Gunnoe said from her home Tuesday.

Lamborn — who leads the energy and mineral resources subcommittee under the House Committee on Natural Resources — said he heard about the photo before the hearing and decided to pull it from the planned presentation without looking at it. As chairman of the subcommittee, he is in charge of the hearing, the witnesses and the staff.

“I accept the judgment of professional staff,” Lamborn said Tuesday. “If it’s inappropriate, I don’t think I should be viewing it. The fewer people who viewed it, the better.”

Lamborn on Tuesday said he still hadn’t seen the photo and didn’t intend to.

As committee rules dictate, Gunnoe e-mailed the photo to the GOP committee staffers about 8 a.m., two hours before the hearing started. When she arrived on Capitol Hill, she was told by the same staffers that the photo was inappropriate and she could not display it during her testimony.

“I asked them why, and they just kept saying it was inappropriate. There were no more answers than that,” Gunnoe said. “I just let it go because the hearing was about to start.”

The photo by award-winning photographer Katie Falkenberg was part of a photo essay about the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining. It is taken from above a 5-year-old in West Virginia bathing in murky orange water. The child’s face is not identifiable, and Falkenberg says the parents were in the room when the photo was taken and granted permission for the photo to be used at the hearing.

Gunnoe went on to testify about the perils of mountaintop removal mining in her state, particularly the Spruce Coal Mine, which Republicans say the Obama administration is holding up.

After the hearing, a U.S. Capitol Police officer asked Gunnoe to step into a side room alone to answer questions. For 45 minutes, he asked Gunnoe who she was, where she was from, where the photos came from, what she did for a living. Gunnoe said it was a “reasonable line of questioning since his job is to investigate these claims.”

Lamborn’s office said he did not recommend police be called and said it was a “senior committee staff decision.” He said he may draft a policy in the future where he is notified if police are called on a witness.

“I’ve never been through this before,” he said.

Lamborn is seeking a fourth term and is in a tight primary race against El Paso County businessman Robert Blaha to keep his seat. Since 2007, Lamborn has earned a name for himself as a social conservative who ardently protects defense spending and advocates on social issues.

Last year, he got in trouble by comparing President Barack Obama to a “tar baby” on a radio show. He later apologized for the remark.

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, told Politico on Tuesday night that he stands by Lamborn’s decision not to display the photo in the hearing. He did not say who called police on Gunnoe.

Spencer Pederson, a Republican spokesman for the committee, said in a statement: “The photograph was inappropriate for a congressional hearing. … We respect the professional judgment of the Capitol Police to determine how to handle such a matter, which is why it was referred to them.”

Joan Mulhern, an attorney and legislative council for Earthjustice, was with Gunnoe on Friday and called the entire saga “despicable.”

“I thought they just didn’t want her to show the picture because they were in denial about water pollution,” Mulhern said. “But by taking it this far, it is intimidating to a witness. … I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Gunnoe has won several awards for speaking out on behalf of impoverished communities in the heart of southern Appalachia just 5 miles as the crow flies from where the Hatfields (of the Hatfields and McCoys) lived, she said.

“I am a mother and a grandmother first,” she said, noting she has a 21-year-old son who is a coal miner, an 18-year-old daughter, a grandson and is about to adopt her 8-year-old nephew because his mother was killed in a car accident. “He (Lamborn) should have seen the photo and he wouldn’t have made this decision.”

Eben Burnham-Snyder, a Democratic spokesman for the Natural Resources Committee, said Gunnoe “had a picture that every parent in America has taken.”

“Thankfully, most parents in our country don’t have to worry about bathing their kids in polluted water,” Burnham-Snyder said.

Gunnoe said she has not heard from Capitol Police since Friday. A spokeswoman told The Denver Post that they “conducted a preliminary investigation. No criminal activity was discovered.”

Allison Sherry: 202-662-8907, asherry@denverpost.com or twitter.com/allisonsherry