This is my third year at UMSL as a student in the college of education. From what I’ve seen in St. Louis schools, the reputation of our university precedes itself in the community as an institution that puts forth very qualified and effective teachers. I promise to work hard and to live up to that reputation in the coming years. I am writing to you today with regards to the good name of our school, and its association with a company known throughout the Appalachian region where I’m from.
Earlier this month, you accepted a $750,000 gift from Peabody Energy to update two engineering labs on campus. In return for this gift, Peabody was given the naming rights for our Environmental Engineering Laboratory. As a longtime resident of West Virginia I have to tell you; if you want to see Peabody’s idea of environmental engineering, then come and look at the dead river systems and mountaintops that have been blown apart. On my recent trip to West Virginia over Labor Day, I drove through a dust cloud drifting off of Peabody’s surface mine in Lynnville, Indiana. The visible dust that draped the trees for several miles around the 40 mile marker of I-64 was a sight that I’m not unfamiliar with.
Studies conducted by West Virginia University have linked this particulate matter consisting of sulphur and silica to microvascular dysfunction, which could explain increases of cardiovascular disease in areas of close proximity to mountaintop removal sites. These coal companies unapologetically blast toxins into the air, while allowing lead, selenium, and arsenic to seep into the river systems. The one bit of environmental engineering that these companies seem to be proud of, ‘clean coal’, involves blindly injecting heavy water used in the cleaning process into abandoned, unsealed mines; several Appalachian communities have been a part of medical monitoring systems as a result. The financial costs have been in the millions due to the contaminated water table that thousands of West Virginians rely upon for drinking, cooking, and bathing. Of course, we cannot put a price tag on the many people who have died of their illnesses.
How Peabody Energy could have the audacity to put their name on an environmental engineering lab is beyond me. As far as UMSL’s engineering department is concerned, I really wish you would have found a more appropriate means of keeping the lights on. As your student, I must ask you to return the money to Peabody Energy, and perhaps allow them to use it for the pensions that they are about to be sued for by the United Mine Workers of America. I would like to think that $750,000 is an unfair price for the integrity of our institution. Any students or faculty members who are interested in working with me on this issue should contact me at hardhitpeople@gmail.com
Sincerely,
David Scott
Senior, Elementary Education
Apparently UMSL felt the need to 'respond'...
ReplyDeletePeabody's gift will help UMSL
A recent gift from Peabody Energy to the University of Missouri-St. Louis will greatly enhance the university's science education programs and regional environmental research. These no-strings-attached funds are meant to provide a modern technology-based physics laboratory, as well as a new state-of-the-art environmental sciences laboratory.
The gift ensures UMSL can offer the newest approaches to the teaching and understanding of physics as well as provide interested students with exposure to modern environmental sciences. The courses taught in the environmental science laboratory will focus on studying our two major rivers — primarily monitoring the chemical and physical aspects of these critical waterways, identifying problems and remediating such problems to enhance their ecosystems.
Students and all those interested in our regional environmental health are the major beneficiaries. Peabody Energy is to be commended as a good corporate citizen.
Ron Yasbin — St. Louis
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Missouri-St. Louis
Another winner.... this time from a PR guy.
ReplyDeleteI was disturbed to read a series of letters to the editor in the Post-Dispatch that misrepresent facts about Peabody Energy, a major employer at a time when unemployment is high and America’s economy is stalled.
Peabody is the world’s largest coal company, and one reader accused Peabody of mountaintop removal mining. The truth is Peabody doesn’t operate mines that engage in mountaintop removal mining. But Peabody does win plenty of environmental awards, taking home more than 30 global awards for safety, corporate, environmental and social responsibility last year alone.
Another called for greater financial disclosure for the Prairie State Energy Campus, a major coal plant in Washington County, Ill., that Peabody championed. Prairie State is not-for-profit and has been one of the most transparent projects of its kind. Eight owners of the campus are public power and electric cooperatives. So, city councils and other governing bodies of participating communities have been deeply involved in decision-making.
Yet another writer claims that our region would be better off speculating on the open market for energy rather than investing in a stable source of power that could last 30 years. While Prairie State is forecast to reach an all-in cost of $50-$55 per megawatt hour, spot market prices in 2012 swung wildly and exceeded $1,000 per megawatt hour at times. Flipping a switch shouldn’t be like turning a roulette wheel.
These writers are right about one thing: We need to plan wisely to “keep the lights on.” One local company is advocating just that, while these letter writers seem to want to keep us all in the dark.
Ray McCarty • Jefferson City
President/CEO, Associated Industries of Missouri
My response on comments section....
ReplyDeletePeabody Energy has distanced itself from Mountaintop Removal only as far as it's removed itself from the retired Peabody miners' pensions. Once the corporate veil has been pierced in the UMWA lawsuit, the lights will be shining bright on Peabody's business practices. Peabody Energy should be paying the men and families who risked their lives everyday on the job instead of business advocates. I can assure you, Peabody MTR was happening long before Patriot spun off and long before they stopped sharing HR departments and other office spaces.
Coal companies used to hire 'detective agencies' who would do the bidding of King Coal out in the coal fields of Appalachia to squash unions. Now they hire skilled PR specialists and spin off subsidiaries to make miners disappear... or at least their pensions and benefits. Tell me, Mr. McCarty. How did Peabody ever consider Patriot Coal would be a viable enterprise? Could they have bulldozed any more overburden onto Patriot's portfolio in such a way that they wouldn't have even lasted five years before bankruptcy?
For every environmental trophy sitting on Peabody's shelf I'll take you to dozens of communities destroyed by your job creator, including some in West Virginia who sat in the darkness of coal slurry injection over which your employer settled out of court on confidential terms. What was the price they paid for all of those brain tumors?