When President Barack Obama’s staff turns on the lights to the Oval Office this week, a signal will be sent from the Potomac Energy Company to the Chalk Point Generation Station, where the coal-handling facility service of the power plant will shovel in coal that has been strip-mined from the clear-cut, toppled-over, and exploded mountains of West Virginia.
At least, in theory.
In effect, President Obama and his administration are now connected to one of the most tragic environmental and human rights disasters in American history—the employment of mountaintop-removal mining methods in Appalachia that have eliminated over 470 mountains and adjacent communities, 1 million acres of hardwood forests, and 1,200 miles of streams from our American maps.
This includes Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, the last great mountain in a historic range that has been on the forefront of the clean-energy movement. Citing the unique wind potential of Coal River Mountain, local citizens and coal miners have pushed for an industrial wind farm that would provide 200 jobs, enough megawatts for 150,000 homes in the area, and $1.7 million in tax revenues. Last week, however, as Obama visited a wind-turbine parts factory in Ohio, the first bulldozers arrived to clearcut the forest and open the way for the next mountaintop-removal tragedy.
This area also includes the hollows of Fayette County, West Virginia, where a teenage African-American followed his brothers into the coal mines in the 1890s, serving what Carter Woodson called his “six-year apprenticeship.” In the evenings, Woodson listened to the extraordinary stories of black coal miners. As Woodson learned, the origins of coal mining in colonial America, like the early cotton and rice industries, dated back to the role of black slaves.
As one of our country’s most celebrated historians, Woodson went on to become the “Father of Black History” and founder of Black History Month. In a speech at Hampton Institute in Virginia, Woodson reminded the audience: “We have a wonderful history behind us ... If you are unable to demonstrate to the world that you have this record, the world will say to you, ‘You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else.’ They will say to you, ‘Who are you anyway?’”
Appalachians understand this bitter historical reality more than any other citizens in the United States. Black Appalachians, especially.
A century after Woodson’s labor in the coal mines in West Virginia, another “first” took place in Fayette County. In 1970, the first mountaintop-removal operation was launched in Cannelton Hollow. Thirty-eight years later, the quick and dirty option of highly mechanized mountaintop removal has resulted in massive coal-mining job losses, soaring poverty, polluted waterways, and the demise of hope in the Appalachian region.
This destruction has not happened out of need, but a myopic coveting for cheap production. Coal stripped from mountaintop-removal methods provides less than 5 percent of our nationwide coal production; over 50 million tons of coal from West Virginia alone are exported abroad. In fact, any demand for mountaintop-removal coal could easily be handled by production in other states, or simply eliminated through energy-efficiency measures and renewable energy sources.
As former Vice President Al Gore has stated in public, “mountaintop removal is a crime, and ought to be treated as a crime.”
Last December, however, the departing Environmental Protection Agency head Stephen Johnson agreed to an order to do away with a 25-year-old law regulating the dumping of coal mining waste into waterways, unleashing a new generation of destruction on Appalachia.
In the first hundred days of his administration, working under lights generated by mountaintop-removal coal, President Obama, energy point person Carol Browner, and EPA head Lisa Jackson must reverse this reckless decision by the EPA, and more aggressively enforce the Stream Buffer rule and Clean Water Act laws. At the same time, any economic recovery must include education and retraining, such as a G.I. Bill for coal miners, to lay the groundwork for a shift to clean energy jobs.
More importantly, President Obama and his administration can effectively end the crime of mountaintop removal by giving their support to the H.R. 2169 bill passing through Congress now, which will establish the Clean Water Protection Act, and calls for protection of our nation’s coalfield communities by not allowing industries to indiscriminately pollute and bury waterways, and seemingly destroy their lives through strip mining.
All Americans are connected to the tragedy of mountaintop removal. It’s time to start the process of illuminating the White House, and our own homes, with clean energy.
Obama administration officials grateful for early spring
Capturing the massive social benefits of fuel efficiency requires regulation
Comments
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Pompey Road Posted 9:03 am
23 Jan 2009
At the time in the Southern West Virginia coal fields of Logan and Mingo county there was not enough local labor to support the mines. Italians and Afro-Americans also lived in the coal camps and worked the Southern Appalachia coal mines. I have not studied the incident in great detail but I would assume Afro-American miners were among the 10,000 miners who fought on Blair Mountain for a living wage and the right to be treated like a human being.
The mountain that should have made a memorial for the Appalachians who fought there for their most basic of human rights is now under threat of being destroyed by the coal corporations using the Mountain Top Removal method of mining coal. One reason the region and the people are a forgotten footnote in history is that they have no memorials for the people who fought for the most basic of human rights against an organized and powerful conglomerate of coal corporations.
If Obama went to Blair Mountain MTR would be stopped immediately. If Michelle went to Blair Mountain MTR would cease to be the scourge of Appalachia immediately. I will suggest that if Oprey went to Blair Mountain the practice of Mountain Top Removal would not last the year. For a people who have no voice someone needs to speak for them. For a region that has been exploited for generations someone needs to save it. For the Appalachian Mountain that belongs to the nation because the men that fought there and are a part of the nations history should be memoralized. Obama should save Blair Mountain and put a windmill on it beside the memorial and then help us save the southern Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky and West Virginia.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Tasermons Partner Posted 11:46 am
23 Jan 2009
I thought the Capitol Power Plant provided that power, not the Chalk Point Station?
Not that that's any better, since Capitol Power Plant still uses the dirtiest type of coal, and Byrd and McConnell blocked efforts to clean it up.
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Pompey Road Posted 8:42 am
25 Jan 2009
Mountain Top Removal or Kamikazi mining is only done to save a few dollars a ton over having to mine coal underground. Complying with MSHA, Mine Safety & Health Administration regulation cost a few extra bucks on a ton and it takes more labor to mine underground. Also Eastern Coal has been in a tizzy over Western coal ever since they have started stripping out West. Large thick seams of coal just under the surface of flat land, easy to mine and you can use much larger equipment. Cheaper to mine and it is low sulfur and in most cases does not have to even be washed.
A better term for Mountain Top Removal would be Mizer mining only done in the Southern Appalachian mountains to save a few bucks a ton over underground mining. It is also done to try to stay competitive with Western Coal. The 1977 Surface Mining Act requires that you put the mountains back on the original contour. It looks wierd, as the Rocky Mountains above tree line where the trees suddenly stop growing. Only in the east the altitude is much less and you have no natural tree line except the contour strip mined mountains where above tree line you have the grass growing sown by reclamation on the top of the mountain instead of trees.
It cost a little more to put the overburden back on the original contour and sow some weed mix on it. Much cheaper to just blow the top of the mountain off and push the overburden over in a valley.
The thing is stopping Mountain Top Removal won't slow mining down at all. It may drive Eastern Coal underground but the portion of coal lost by stopping Mountain Top Removal in the East will just be picked up out West where the coal is cleaner and cheaper to mine anyway.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Pompey Road Posted 8:52 am
25 Jan 2009
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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tmullins Posted 6:56 am
26 Jan 2009
When it comes to environmental and health care issues in Wise County you can bet the Politicians and The Profit Machines come first.
Hannity shut the fuck up !
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