This week, Gabriel Pacyniak and Katherine Chandler are traveling throughout southern West Virginia to report on mountaintop removal mining (MTR). They'll be visiting coalfields with abandoned and "reclaimed" MTR mines, and talking with residents, activists, miners, mine company officials, local reporters, and politicians.
We'll publish their reports throughout the week.
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At the Cabin Creek Rd. exit along Interstate 64, we turn off onto a two-lane drive that follows the creek. We pass from one hollow to another, small communities of West Virginians in the cramped valleys of Appalachia. At the end of the road, atop Kayford Mountain, lives Larry Gibson, 
the unofficial ambassador of the movement to stop mountaintop removal mining, or MTR. Gibson has been fighting MTR for 22 years, and has over 5,000 visitors signed into his guest book. This includes CNN's Anderson Cooper, who showcased Gibson last week on his 360 Heroes program. It is our first stop on a five-day trip across the coalfields of southern West Virginia, looking at how MTR has changed the landscape 30 years after the passage of the federal Surface Mining Reclamation and Control Act.
From the highway, it is difficult to imagine the devastation that has occurred at the mine site; the green, rolling hills seem to stretch out forever, hidden in the light haze of summer. As we continue up the road, we pass by the houses of local residents and a few community churches, following the dirt fork to the right that takes us over a small bridge. There's still no visible sign of the strip mining taking place all around us, but we do see our first sign of mining's impact -- the one-lane dirt road bridge has been reinforced to hold a 40,000-pound truck.
The blasting area at Kayford Mountain. (photo: Katherine Chandler)
On the way up we pass the entrance to the Massey Energy strip mine. A giant pile of gravel blocks the view, leaving us unprepared for the scene that Gibson shows us at the edge of his property, where his family has lived for years. Here, the landscape has been completely transformed, the lush green replaced with gray piles of rubble and small patches of the valuable coal veins that run from here to Kentucky. A dragline scoops giant rock and debris blasted earlier in the day into three massive 190-ton loaders. Gibson points out that the whole operation only requires a handful of laborers, while the deep mines that operated in the area employed hundreds.
Afterwards, Gibson brings us to his pavilion to show us how the mountain has been torn apart, using a hand-built wooden model. The contours of the original mountain are hundreds of feet taller than they are today, actually towering above the high ridge that we had looked upon the mine from earlier. Millions of tons of unwanted rock have been pushed over the edge to bury valleys and streams, showing the impact of these operations on not only the mountaintops but also the valleys beneath them. He also shows us a picture of a pickup-sized rock sitting on the road, explaining that it is flyrock, literally an errant boulder blasted hundreds of feet outside the mine.
The view from the top of Kayford Mountain. (photo: Katherine Chandler)
Towards the end, an emotional Gibson recounts how a dozer ran through his family's historic cemetery in the past month. "You have to get the fire in your belly!," he implores us.
Our next stop will be at the Charleston, W.Va., airport, where Tom White, a volunteer pilot with non-profit organization Southwings will show us the scope of MTR from the air.
Blowing up our clean energy future
Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) [UPDATED]
Comments
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eelia Posted 1:47 pm
20 Aug 2007
And yet harrowing drama it most certainly is, both environmentally and economically. Thank you for posting this blog about your trip. Your photos and journal brought me to a location I would not otherwise have gone to and help to make real a situation that I could not have otherwise imagined.
I look forward to reading your future postings.
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caniscandida Posted 3:33 pm
20 Aug 2007
We may hope to hear more about why the people who live near the MTR mines are generally so passive and acquiescent.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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JMG Posted 4:22 pm
20 Aug 2007
Jesus, Canis, get a grip. Appalachia suffers from the same resource curse as every other place that has created immense wealth for the few at the expense of the many poor they oppress. The coal companies have been murdering and destroying people long before Shell helped hang Ken Saro-Wiwa--it's the same damn thing.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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caniscandida Posted 4:53 pm
20 Aug 2007
I quite understand what you mean, about the sociology of Appalachia. I do not think I am gripless. But I am clearly nowhere near as well educated as you, and all I am asking for (right now) is a bit of education.
You might start, in fact, you, dear JMG, by explaining the analogy with what happened to the Nigerian hero. And I do not ask for myself alone. It would encourage many in West Virginia and Kentucky, if it were written straight out, how what happened to Ken Saro-Wiwa is very like what has happened, and what is ever threatened, in Appalachia.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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JMG Posted 5:38 pm
20 Aug 2007
In short, coal is to Appalachia what oil is to Nigeria -- the source of all wealth and the power and wealth that is concentrated into the hands of the few, who have no problem killing those who dare to point out the inequity and ask for a better shake.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:20 pm
20 Aug 2007
All the troublemakers that would have energized coal unions were moved off to the city. No unions, no worker protection. And environment comes last, way after workers.
Imagine modern coal miners. Drwan even from other regions in their zeal to do a dangerous job without complaining and earn a few more dollars per hour. The reverse is happening. people who are proud to oppose safety, health, and unions on the job, moving to coal mining country. To risk their lives for mine owners. Happily. Until an accident.
Remember the fellers who dipped their bodies into barrels of agent orange to prove it harmless during vietnam? yep. The real canaries in the coal mine.
It's a volunteer army of victims! So it's ok.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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wiscidea Posted 8:15 am
23 Aug 2007
Environmentalist might want to look into how one might encourage telecommuters to settle near these areas or perhaps not criticize wealthy corporate executives or actors who want to build a second or third home in the rolling hills of West Virginia. Once the people are in place, they can form alliances with locals who want to preserve the natural environment around their homes. The area might be protected by three powerful forces... money, pure selfishness, and a personal tie to the land. Oh... and the wealthy will want to preserve their property's value for a long time.
Just a half-baked idea. Putting it out there for discussion.
Based on political behavior I've observed... but I won't go into that right now.
Forward!
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shaynek788 Posted 10:36 am
24 Aug 2007
The term "tar sands" refers to thick oil called bitumen that is mixed in with sand, clay, and water. Intensive energy is required to process the sands into crude oil. Tar Sands oil is the world's most harmful type of oil for the atmosphere, emitting high volumes of greenhouse gases during development, which contribute to global warming, as well as other pollutants. Tar Sands projects are the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions growth in Canada. By 2015, the Tar Sands are expected to emit more greenhouse gases than the nation of Denmark (pop. 5.4 million).
Source and picture
http://www.borealbirds.org/images/tarsands3.jpg
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feministgirl Posted 2:05 pm
24 Aug 2007
or by Internet through the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Please identify the comments by including docket number 1029-AC04 in the subject line.
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feministgirl Posted 3:35 pm
24 Aug 2007
Docket ID: OSM-2007-0007-0001
Document Title: Excess Spoil, Coal Mine Waste, and Buffers for Waters of the United States
of course, the office of surface mining and reclamation has made it as difficult as possible to navigate to the comments, but it is possible!
"The Earth is the Lord's, and everything in it; the world, and all that lives upon it." (Psalm 24:1)
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MD77 Posted 5:12 am
25 Aug 2007
Where are the hearings, floor debates, committee reports?? Seems like everybody is getting a piece of the action- coal party rolls on.
What they are doing to the Appalachians is criminal and it's going to take a lot of screaming and crying to set it right. So get on it people.
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edbogs Posted 10:11 pm
27 Aug 2007
I am an environmental engineer and have conducted numerous windshield studies throughout most of West Virginia. It takes little time and effort (unfortunately)to see firsthand the results of previous illegal MTR. The only ones to benefit from this practice have been the mine company owners and real estate barrons.
One does not even have to drive through or flyover the devastated areas. Simply go to a university library and take a look at the 1970 and 2000 West Virginia aerial photographs. MTR is responsible for all of the cleared or "mall" filled flat tops that once were lush, vegetated mountain ranges. The same libraries, as well as the state's Bureau of Public Health, contain documented proof of the environmental damage.
What do we have to do to end the white house's undemocratic devastation of our political, environmental, and moral landscape? How do we awaken an apethetic populous to their design for immediate gain regardless of long term ramifications?
Paint the path towards likely receprtors and I will follow up with other articles to gain a peaceful way out of unbridled destruction of our environment.
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juddfranklin Posted 6:51 am
11 Sep 2007
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Earthy Chick Posted 10:17 am
09 Oct 2007
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buffywuffy74 Posted 3:46 am
20 May 2008
Do you have two brothers named Clyde and Andrew Gibson? Also did you ever go by the name Michael? I am trying to find someone.
Alli
alli
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