Oh, the West Virginia hills! How
unchang'd they seem to stand,
With their summits pointed skyward To the Great Almighty's Land!
Many changes I can see, Which my heart with sadness fills;
But no changes can be noticed In those West Virginia hills.
3rd
verse of ‘West Virginia Hills By, Mrs.
Ellen King
How
I wish that last line was true. It was ten years ago when I lived out the
fourth verse of our state song and said ‘adieu’ to those West Virginia hills. I’ve
lived in the city of St. Louis for the last several years, though visions of
those hilltops along Rte. 33 in Randolph County and the mossy hollows of North
Bend State Park frequent my daydreams. The only thing I miss more than the
mountains back home is the people. I miss the friendly waves from strangers on
the back county roads, and the simple acknowledgement of each other’s humanity. In West Virginia, our difficult history
and unforgiving terrain has demanded that we stick together as a community in
order to survive. That history is being put to the test in southern West
Virginia where mining operations detonate several megatons of explosives in our
mountaintops every week. The process of Mountaintop Removal (MTR) has become
the predominant form of coal mining in southern West Virginia, where several hundred
square miles of mountaintops have been blasted away and bulldozed into the
valleys below. The arguments for and against MTR have been going on for years
and have led to violence, environmentalist sit-ins, intimidation and vandalism,
and a deep division among residents of our coalfields. Leading up to the
election cycle of 2012, both sides have pressed the issue believing that their
concerns have fallen on deaf ears in Charleston and Washington D.C.
Can’t
Find a Dime to Spare
The Friends of
Coal have put forth several arguments in what they have called the ‘war on
coal’, one of which stems from an age-old dilemma that’s never been solved in
our state. Quite accurately, industry officials and paid spokespersons have
pointed out that coal companies employ a large number of people in West
Virginia. In the 2011 State of Coal release, President Bill Raney of the WV
Coal Association said that “the $26 billion dollar coal industry and the 63,000
jobs it provides have provided a solid foundation for the state economy”. It
should also be mentioned that most of these jobs pay well in excess of $60,000
a year, which is much higher than the average income of most people in the Appalachian
region. According to 2011 US census data, the poverty rate for Lincoln County
was 26.6 percent and the per capita income is right around $16,400 a year. In
Logan County, these numbers are similar with a poverty level of 21.8 percent
and per capita income of $18,600 a year. If the coal industry is so important
to our economy, as Bill Raney asserts, then why is the coal mining region
characterized by so much economic depression? In these two counties, there was
only a combined seventeen building permits issued in 2011. That’s hard to
believe considering the amount of wealth being generated by the coal industry.
It’s the coal
industry’s assertion that Barack Obama has waged a war on coal miners by
raising EPA standards and forcing coal powered plants to shut down. At
wvcoal.com there is a wealth of blame placed on the Obama Administration for
coal’s lackluster market performance. The first problem you find when you delve
into this claim is that coal production has only decreased by around 10% during
the Obama presidency; and in fairness to the President, there are currently
1,000 more people working in the WV mining industry than there were on his
first day in office. In all of its ‘war on coal’ rhetoric, the industry seems
to have left out the leading cause of coal’s drop in the market.
Last month a reputable industry consulting firm,
the Brattle Group, released a study on the market performance of coal and the
rising unemployment. Despite claims by the coal industry, the Brattle Group
finds that competition with Natural Gas is the greatest factor in the decline
of coal in the United States. With a boom of shale drilling
across the U.S. there is an abundance of natural gas; maybe you’ve seen the drilling trucks headed across Rt. 50 or the hillsides of Wetzel County. It’s not just the EPA and
the Sierra Club who are causing problems for coal; Chesapeake Energy has spent
millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions in the last two
years. The way that these drilling companies have tapped into the shale reserve
is not without controversy or its own path of destruction, but the fact remains
that the abundance of natural gas has driven the costs of coal down.
The extraction of natural gas isn't the only methodical
change that’s affected the employment numbers in the coalfields. According to
West Virginia Mine Health, Safety, and Training (WVMHST), the mining industry
has only employed 21,146 people in WV as of August 2012, a third of what Bill
Raney told us. These numbers include miners, equipment operators, drivers, and
other coal related professionals. Of those twenty one thousand employees, 5,483
of them work on surface mines. Surface mining this year has accounted for 31
million tons of coal production, while underground mining has accounted for 63
million tons. In 2011, each surface miner averaged 110 tons of coal production more
per day than their underground counterparts.
Change in mining methods is nothing new; the
twentieth century saw a major drop in the number of miners used to dig the coal
out of our West Virginia hills. At my elementary school in Charleston we were
taught that the modern continuous miner used below ground led to a decrease in
the labor force. My third grade teacher wasn't exactly wearing a red bandanna
around her neck when she taught this lesson; she was simply teaching the
mathematical facts associated with WV coal mining. This same math should be
applied to the use of MTR. Think about it. Is it cheaper to clear cut trees, or
dig a tunnel hundreds of feet below the surface? From the perspective of
liability, do you want to drop miners and heavy equipment down a basket all day
or haul it up a dirt road? As a big coal executive, the biggest price drop you’re
going to experience with MTR is in labor costs. Using ammonium nitrate is not
only much cheaper than paying for man-hours, but it’s also more effective at
blasting away rock, coal, and other things lying under the ridge tops.
In 2009 the late
Senator Byrd said, “The
increased use of mountaintop removal mining means that fewer miners are needed to meet company production goals.
Meanwhile the Central Appalachian coal seams that remain to be mined are
becoming thinner and more costly to mine. Mountaintop removal mining, a
declining national demand for energy, rising mining costs and erratic spot
market prices all add up to fewer
jobs in the coal fields.” When the reduction of a labor force involves shifting
extraction methodologies, sudden surpluses of alternative fuels, and geological
complications, it’s no wonder that the coal industry looks for a scapegoat.
Every Valley Shall Be Filled
Another argument in support of MTR that’s been
gaining some traction is the apparent need for flat land in West Virginia. Randy Huffman, of the West Virginia
Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) made this case before Congress
in 2009 when he said that MTR provides an opportunity that “is very important
in the southern West Virginia coal mining region where no flat land exists.”
Joe Manchin has publicly echoed this argument over the years calling this
aspect of MTR a ‘principal tool’ in the redevelopment of these areas. Valley
Fills are areas of plateau created by coal companies as they cover streams
and fill in hollows with the rubble that once stretched toward the sky on the
ridge tops of southern WV. There’s no reason to argue the industry’s point that
they’re done with skillful engineering, however, it doesn’t take an engineer or
a camera loving politician from Fairmont to know that it doesn’t take a strip
mine to build facilities in the state of West Virginia.
Maybe Senator Manchin has taken too many helicopter
rides over the last decade to remember what his predecessor accomplished right
smack-dab in the middle of Manchin territory. Right along I-79 there’s the NASA
complex, the WV High Tech Consortium, the FBI fingerprinting lab, and Lockheed
Martin operations. We all know that Senator Manchin has spent a considerable
amount of time up in Morgantown which is not only famous for being the home of
the Mountaineers these days. Morgantown recently held the lowest level of unemployment
in the entire country at 2.7%. The expansions of NIOSH, Mylan Pharmaceuticals,
and the WVU Hospital complex, as well as the development of condos, shopping
plazas, and student housing has created one of the fastest growing local economies
in the country. The Morgantown area also experienced a boom of the peripheral
job market extending to the service industry, which for some reason we haven’t
seen in the billion dollar coalfields. By the way, none of the facilities I’ve
listed in Harrison, Marion and Monongalia Counties required the use of MTR.
I would gather that Joe Manchin has traveled the technology
corridor enough to know all of this. He should also know that MTR really makes
it more difficult to bring new companies to the region. If it were only as
simple as flat land there wouldn’t be so many decomposing industrial complexes
up around Cleveland and Detroit. Anyone who's traveled the two lane road system
of West Virginia knows the damage that’s been done by speeding overweight coal trucks. Every truck that does this creates the same amount of damage
to the roads as tens of thousands of cars. Our coalfield highways are in such frequent need of repair that the state has set up a hotline to
report speeding trucks.
The roads and bridges
aren’t the only infrastructural problems that provide obstacles to prospective
businesses. There are major concerns over the quality of air and water in areas
near the mining complexes. Coal dust frequently covers homes while ‘fly rock’
shoots out of the blasting areas; all of this makes for very toxic and dangerous
living conditions. Pauline Canterberry told Appalachian Voices, "For the past 8 years, life in the
community of Sylvester, West Virginia, has been a living hell of black coal
dust, nerve shattering noises and broken promises, while we have watched our
homes destroyed. Many of those problems still remain unsolved. We do not oppose
coal mining, but we do demand that it be done responsibly so as to protect our
town and its citizens.”
 |
| Aerial Photo of Sylvester, WV 2010 |
An increase of flash flooding during heavy rain has
caused many people to abandon their properties in southern Appalachia, as
neither the active mountaintop mining sites nor areas of reclamation do
anything to absorb or slow down the water before it heads to the hollows. These
conditions would make it impossible for local residents to sell their homes and
for prospective industries to set up business. The horrors that residents of
the coalfields are forced to live through are considered ‘acts of God’ by these
multibillion dollar corporations.
Clean coal operations also provide an ominous
future. Over the last forty years there have been 61 coal slurry spills
throughout Appalachia which flooded miles and miles of mountain streams with
toxic sludge. Four years ago, a coal ash spill in Tennessee flooded the
community of Kingston with several feet of thick slurry with floating ‘bergs’
of mercury-laden ash. The whole town, homes and businesses were ruined. According to coalimpoundment.org there are 73
coal slurry impoundments in southern WV.
One thing is clear when looking toward the future; not many of these
issues will be addressed when you have so many untruths about job creation
being told by elected officials, and state bureaucrats.
Friends of Collusion
The power of the coal industry in our state is, and
always has been, prolific. These days, that power is cleverly marketed as a
friendly ‘grassroots movement’. According to their Facebook page, Friends of
Coal WV is an organization who ‘understands the importance of coal mining to
the state’s economy and its people’. According to commercials, Senator Joe
Manchin, Nick Rahall, Shelly Moore-Capito, and Governor Tomblin are all devout
friends of coal. According to the West Virginia Coal Association website, the
Friends of Coal board members are chief executives and high officials of
Patriot Coal, Arch Coal, Alpha Natural Resources, and Consol Energy to name a
few. And there’s no wondering why Joe Manchin is such a friend of coal. According
to opensecrets.org, he received more than $1 million in campaign contributions
from the mutual friends that he and the coal industry share. These corporations
have invested a lot of money into the one renewable source of energy they’ve
been able to muster over the decades, political power.
Over the last two years the top five coal
corporations (Peabody, Arch, Consol, Alpha, and Patriot) have contributed a combined 4.1 million dollars to political campaigns and spent a
whopping 22 million dollars on lobbying. Many of the lobbyists that these
companies hire have direct ties with our government, for instance more than 80%
of Peabody lobbyists once held government positions, even elected office.
Peabody Energy, who recently received a 61 million dollar tax break from the
city of St. Louis where it’s headquartered, has recently been sued by the UMWA
for dumping their miners’ pensions into their subsidiary Patriot Coal, which
was arguably designed to fail by the parent company. Patriot Coal didn’t even
last five years before it filed for bankruptcy. In those same five years
Peabody Energy spent more than $37 million on lobbying in Washington D.C. I
would hope that a true friend of WV coal miners wouldn’t accept money from a
corporation who creates disposable income by disposing its commitment to our
fellow West Virginians.
In order to look out for the best interests of those in
our state with whom we share our two hundred year history, we have to be
willing to look past the façade being put forth by out-of-state multibillion
dollar industries. Being out here in St. Louis, I’ve walked by the Peabody
Building and I’ve seen the jewelry store in their lobby, and the outdoor bistro
and coffee shop. I wonder if the disabled miners of WV who are suing for their
pensions could afford a pumpkin latte this season. The Friends of Coal can call
themselves whatever they want on Facebook, we’re all a little guilty of a
exaggerating on social media. But when you have coal companies who have used
their power over the years to fight against safe working conditions, black lung
benefits, environmental regulations, and the climate bill of 2009, it’s clear that
we are not dealing with a grass roots organization.
In 2009 the U.S. House of Representatives passed
the climate bill (H.R. 2454) which would have set limitations on carbon
emissions and green house gases. It ran into a wall of opposition in the Senate
after more than 1000 firms registered to lobby on this bill. This type of
influence will always guarantee votes against climate legislation, even from Democrats
like Jay Rockefeller, who in 2010 said “I don’t want the EPA turning out the
lights on America.” Global warming has been hit-and-miss in our political
dialog but was recently swept back to the front page with the surging waters of
Hurricane Sandy and the melting of summer ice in the Arctic. An increasing
number of climatologists and skeptics have come to a consensus that our planet
is getting hotter. Overseas, countries
like Germany and Spain are getting as much as 25% of their overall energy from
solar power, but thanks to the political buying power held by the mining
industry, coal will be keeping the lights on for quite some time in the U.S. My
friend Roger Banks, of Man, WV recently commented that in addition to the
lights, “coal powered electricity also kept my father’s ventilator running over
the years before he died of black lung disease.”
Old Black Gold, You've Taken My
Lungs
I recently
talked to Roger about his father who worked in the mines from the 1960’s to the
80’s. “Dad was a post-depression child of a coal miner who died in the mines in
the 1950’s. He was the hardest working, most driven, focused man I have ever
known. His one and only job in life was to take care of his family and set his
children up for a better life than his. Dad’s hope for my sister and me was
having the chance at going to college. He taught us to give a man a day’s work,
but don’t let anyone take advantage of us”. Robert ‘Bob’ Banks worked for
several subsidiary mines, as well as Arch and Consol over the years. He was a
strong union man who upheld the ideals of John L. Lewis. “He always fought for
safety and would not enter an unsafe mine. He built a culture of safety because
he knew it paid off.” Because of unsafe conditions “he had to walk on occasion.
Dad knew how to use the system for his protection.”
Despite their
concerns for safety, many miners chose not to use the protection offered against
black lung because it was too bulky and inefficient. Many men, like Bob Banks simply chewed tobacco
in hopes that it would keep too much dust from entering their lungs. In the
late 80’s, Bob Banks was diagnosed with silicosis and black lung. “Dad was
smart and attended to the mind numbing paperwork. He got legal assistance from
a reputable lawyer. My mom used the same attorney to get survivor black lung
benefits, which took years.” Bob Banks followed doctors’ orders to the letter
and lived to the age of 72. “Dad was an independent bull who showed me what is
possible with hard work and a good heart.”
Roger told me that
his father vehemently opposed mountaintop removal; his love for working in the
mines did not exceed the love he had for the mountains. Like most of us in the
state, Mr. Banks would have seen the blaze orange streams winding through the hollers.
The toxic mess along the Cheat and Coal River, and the red industrial stains
across the rocks of Douglas and Pringle Falls are some of the most visible
effects left by the coal industry. I lived along Decker’s Creek up in
Morgantown, which at the time ran over those reddish acid stained rocks all the
way from Richard to the Monongahela River. It’s hard to erase the images of all
of those tributaries running red, and it’s hard to accept that mining companies
are exempt from liability as long as the damages started before 1977 thanks to
the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act.
 |
Acid Mine Drainage pouring into the Cheat River just north of Albright in 2002
Courtesy Google Earth |
This legislation
set up the Abandoned Mine Land fund, which is now the only way to deal with the
waste created by toxic water building up in these abandoned mines. But we have to remember, there is really no such
thing as an abandoned mine in West Virginia. When a company wishes to
relinquish its operations, there are procedures that must take place through
the WVDEP in order to release the bond. The term ‘abandoned’ might give us the
impression that these areas were simply cast aside and forever forgotten which
simply isn’t true. The term ‘abandoned’ might better suit the disabled miners who
are still forced to sue over black lung benefits, disability, and pensions. The
term ‘abandoned’ might better suit the people in two coalfield communities who
pleaded with the WVDEP for years to help them while they experienced a deadly
outbreak of contamination.
The
Waters were Teaming with Life
In 2005, people
in the two communities of Prenter and Rawl started noticing serious problems
with their well water. These two areas had depended upon their wells for
generations, but all of the sudden they were forced to change filters every
week or so while the water ran orange and black. During the 1970’s, coal
companies began washing their coal to satisfy requirements of the Clean Air
Act. Billions of gallons of the leftover slurry has been injected into old mine
shafts across Appalachia. In the Prenter and Rawl areas it’s clear that this toxic
pollution found its way into the well water, despite early DEP claims that it
wouldn’t have been possible.
 |
| More than 700 people in this area were affected by reckless coal slurry injection. Courtesy Google Earth |
It took years
for the people of Rawl to get a DEP inspector to come look at their water,
according to D.I. Sammons. In a 2007 interview (Toxic West Virginia) he showed the camera a heaping pile of
medicine bottles prescribed to him, and said that his doctor is amazed that
he’s still alive after having so much lead in his system. Lead is only one of the
toxins being monitored in this community where more than 700 people filed a class action suit against Massey Energy. His neighbor, Donetta
Blankenship, tells me “breathing problems came from gases coming up through the
sinks. At night we would wash the dishes and the kids would all take a shower
or bath. The next morning we’d get up and be gone during the day. When we came
home it would still smell like rotten eggs.” Many children who were diagnosed
with asthma in this community were actually suffering from hydrogen sulfide gas
poisoning. “When we moved here, my son ended up breathing so bad they had to
keep watch on him, but after we got the city water he’s had no problem.” After
13 years of severe health problems the Mingo County community finally received
municipal water lines, but the residents still suffer from lingering effects. Donetta
told me that her home still looks like a pharmacy because of so many prescription
medicines she’s taking.
She also told me that at least 50 people died
of conditions that were being monitored as a part of the lawsuit. The residents
were also treated for manganese, beryllium, selenium, and sulfuric acid poisoning.
At 45 years old, she is sure that she is suffering from dementia. “Just ask my
husband”, who works as a mechanic in the garage of their small business. “Not
even before he is out of my sight, I’ve already forgotten what I was going to
do”. When I asked her whether or not it had anything to do with the
contamination she told me, “Some of it is too much stress; some of it I’m not
sure. They say some of the chemicals will cause some of that.” Unfortunately, her
trips to the doctor won’t be over anytime soon. “I’ve had some osteoporosis and
I just found out these toxins can cause bones to deteriorate.” She also said
that she was diagnosed with four new conditions in August of this year, one of
which might require a visit to a neurologist.
It’s hard to
believe that her current physical health is arguably an improvement. In 2005
she was forced to go to the emergency room because of liver failure. “I didn’t
have a problem before I moved here in 2001. But in 2005, I was dying”. She had
to go back to the ICU in 2006 for more liver problems. “My enzymes were in the thousands
and I was yellow all over.” Ever since she and her family started using the city
water, her liver function has return to normal. “What does that tell you?” she
asked repeatedly.
 |
| Aerial photo of Prenter, WV 2002 featuring several coal impoundments and MTR sites. Underground slurry and blasting is a deadly combination. Photo courtesy Google Earth |
There were another
350 people who filed a class action suit against several coal companies in
Prenter. The people in this Boone County community were experiencing deadly brain
tumors, miscarriages, liver cancer, cysts, boils, and kidney failure; children
were suffering from severe tooth decay, respiratory illnesses, and mental
delays. In one small area, 98% of the people who were asked in a community-driven
health survey needed their gallbladders removed. Even during the height of the
crisis, and with so much overwhelming evidence, there was reluctance among some
people in the community to blame the coal companies, according to longtime
resident Maria Lambert.
“People were
afraid! They thought when we got up enough nerve to speak that we would shut
down the mines, so some of us purposely held back what we really wanted to say
so more folks would decide on their own what was happening”. She even went as
far as to say that “if it happens again and is covered up again, it will
probably be here. There’s too many greedy people and greedy companies.” People
in these communities were forced to drink, bathe, and cook with the
contaminated water until an organization that Maria worked with, the Prenter
Water Fund, hauled in barrels of clean water. Most of the residents of this
area now have water lines.
Research
and Controversy
The survivors of
coal slurry injections and black lung disease aren’t the only ones who account
for the human toll associated with coal mining. Over the past several years a
group of researchers from the likes of Duke University, Wheeling Jesuit
College, the USGS, and our own West Virginia University have taken on the
health issues that have affected so many Appalachians living near MTR mining sites. Dr.
Michael Hendryx has created a body of research over the last 5 years that’s
looked into hospitalization patterns, mortality, lung cancer, and other health
problems that have been linked to mountaintop removal coal mining. In 2011 Dr.
Hendryx published a study which found a specific link between MTR and poverty
that doesn’t exist in non-mining and underground mining areas. Another of his studies, coauthored by Dr.
Nathaniel Hitt of the USGS, found “significant links between coal mining,
decreased ecological integrity, and increasing cancer mortality rates. These
findings indicate that West Virginians living near streams polluted by mine
waste are more likely to die of cancer.”
The most
controversial research that Dr. Hendryx has published came out last year. The Association of Mountaintop Removal and
Birth Defects in Live Births in Central Appalachia demonstrated “significantly
higher prevalence rates for birth defects overall, and for six of seven types
of anomalies examined in mountaintop mining areas versus other mining and
non-mining areas. The [prevalence rate ratios] have become significantly worse
in mountaintop mining areas in more recent years for four anomaly types and for
birth anomalies overall.” He concluded that “The findings documented in this study
contribute to the growing evidence that mountaintop mining is done at
substantial expense to the environment, to local economies and to human
health.”
Soon after this
study was released, the coal industry came out swinging. They attacked his
research on the grounds that it was conducted through statistical analysis, and
‘not science’. The coal industry, of all people, accused him of ‘having a dog
in the fight’. Bill Raney said “It
is a shame that this WVU researcher seems to take delight in maligning our
state, our industry and its people with statements that are based on the
researcher's personal opinions and subjective suppositions.” Bill Bissett,
president of the Kentucky Coal Association was not as nice. “Dr. Michael Hendryx is an anti-coal ideologue who is
masquerading again as an objective researcher.” He went on to say, “From
speaking engagements to environmental activists to a failed attempt to
influence the Kentucky General Assembly, his research always comes to a conclusion
against the mining of coal to fit his personal bias and political
objectives."
Shortly
after the release of this study, a New York law firm representing the coal
industry accused Dr. Hendryx of cherry picking statistics to suit his agenda.
In a public statement, attorneys for the Crowell Moring firm said "The study
failed to account for consanquinity,
one of the most prominent sources of birth defects". The lawyers were
referring to an old Appalachian stereotype, “which, incidentally, they
misspelled,” Hendryx said in an interview with Jeff Young. He went to say that
“consanguinity is a term that really means inbreeding; they tried to say that
the birth defect rates that are higher in mountaintop mining areas are really
because of inbreeding. It’s an insulting comment. There’s no evidence that
levels of inbreeding are any higher in Appalachia than in any other area. I
think it’s a little window into the true motive of the coal industry, that
their respect for people who live in these areas is in fact low.”
Recently I asked
Dr. Hendryx about the questions of reliability in his research. He told me, “If
we had done one or two studies and found correlations between mining and public
health, I would be much more cautious about saying that mining impacts
health. We now have over 20 studies that
have documented these effects. The
evidence is much stronger than saying that we only have a correlation. It is stronger because it shows a pattern of
effects.” In explaining these patterns, he says that his studies indicate that
“the health problems that we see get stronger as levels of mining increase; the
worst problems are where mining is heaviest, intermediate where mining is
intermediate, and health is best where mining is absent. The health problems are stronger in MTR areas
vs. areas where other forms of mining are practiced.”
Big Coal’s question
of statistical analysis is a moot point when you’re dealing with environmental
agents that are known to cause illnesses. “We are seeing higher levels of
silica in the air in mining communities, and silica is a well-established lung
carcinogen. Higher levels of dust, in
general, are associated in the literature with increased risks of lung and
heart disease.” The effects of sulfides, lead, mercury, selenium, manganese and
other mining related toxins are also well understood in the scientific community.
 |
| Mountaintop mining over Clear Fork, WV. Photo by Vivian Stockman, courtesy of OVEC |
Statistical
research is not the only type of study being conducted by Dr. Hendryx in the
coalfields. “Colleagues of mine who run animal studies exposed rats to the dust
from the mining communities. The dust
caused microvascular dysfunction, or more specifically, resulted in ‘blunted
dilation’ which means that the normal ability of a blood vessel to dilate under
increased pressure did not occur; this type of a response increases the risk
for cardiovascular disease. The next steps are to try to understand better the
biological mechanisms by which exposure to MTR dust causes dysfunction.” I am
cautiously optimistic that Dr. Hendryx and others in the field will come upon
the ‘big tobacco’ moment and scientifically prove what anyone living in the coalfields
can already tell you; Mountaintop Removal is killing people.
I would
certainly take a man at his word after he has invested so much of his time
researching the sick and abandoned people of the coalfields. I would definitely
take his word over industry officials who are responsible for thousands of
safety violations, thousands of environmental violations, a rise in black lung
disease, and business practices that have left retired miners with disabilities
in poverty. Dr. Hendryx received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in
1986, the same year MTR began on Kayford Mountain in Raleigh County. In the
years since, Dr. Hendryx has clearly lived up to any researcher’s ethical
standards while the headwaters of Cabin Creek have increasingly run red. The
Friends of Coal have the right to dispute these studies all they want, but their
argument doesn’t ring too loudly when it’s clear that some of these coal
companies haven’t even been telling their shareholders the truth. If we can’t
count on the polluters to stop, or the bureaucrats and politicians to make them
stop, then it’s going to be entirely up to all West Virginians to step in and
demand that our neighbors in the coalfields receive their unalienable right to
live.
Montani Semper
Liberi
West Virginia, I plead with you to stop
voting solely on name recognition. Through this process, you’ve allowed the
well known names of Manchin and Moore to leave our borders for the green pastures
of Washington D.C. These names carry a legacy of disappearing funds, felony
corruption, impeachment, and imprisonment. Now they serve as blind friends to a
coalition of out-of-state corporations with the recent history of over-polluting
our rivers, defrauding their pension holders, and covering up the premature deaths
of our neighbors which they’ve, in fact, caused with their reckless practices. Maria
Lambert from Prenter said that it’s also important “to ask the state legislators
to make sure the laws are upheld with the greatest of diligence, and that their
votes depend on it. They say it cost too much money and profits to hold to the
regulations, but I say it costs too much and too many lives not to”.
The people of West Virginia need to cast
aside politicians who would introduce and sponsor such bills as the Stop the War on Coal Act of 2012 (H.R.
3409, 2012) which would tie the hands of the EPA and give even more control to
state level environmental protection. This bill would also end the EPA’s
regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and permanently prevent our government
from ever creating a carbon tax. In the ever-warming real world, this type of
governance is unacceptable and as hopelessly archaic as burning coal for the
purposes of boiling water. The same politicians, Manchin, McKinley, and Rahall,
who have publicly supported this bill, have done nothing to promote the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act (H.R.
5959, 2012) which would place a moratorium on MTR permitting until health
studies are conducted by Health and Human Services. None, Zero, of the 26
co-sponsors of this bill come from the Mountain State. While neither of these symbolic
bills will ever reach the desk of the President, they have definitely given the
Senators and Representatives of our state an opportunity to answer the question
sung by many a West Virginia coal miner- Which
side are you on?
It’s important to remember that most of
the environmental protection laws are written and enforced at the state level.
This creates problems in West Virginia when there is an army of both Democrats
and Republicans who are self-proclaimed friends of a filthy rock, and a WVDEP
that spends too much of its time worrying about jobs instead of protecting the
environment and the people of West Virginia. Only after we break free of this
collusion will our coalfields break free of its persistent poverty, and will we
live up to our wonderful state motto. The coal
industry and its paid politicians are destroying our beautiful hills, poisoning
our ancient rivers, wrecking our economy, and killing the most resilient people
our nation has ever known. We must end Mountaintop Removal.
