Actress Daryl Hannah is arrested by West Virginia State Police Tuesday, June 23, 2009 following a mountaintop removal mining protest in Naoma, W.Va. She was among several hundred protesters who held a rally outside Marsh Fork Elementary school that sits about 300 feet away from a Massey Energy coal processing plant. (AP Photo/Jeff Gentner)
Hey, Coal Tattoo readers … Sorry to not have provided any news yet today on the big protest down in Raleigh County, W.Va. We’ve just posted a brief story here, and we’ll have more soon.
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There wont be a WV if the coal companies give it up.
“There won’t be a WV if the coal companies give it up”
How many times have we heard such doomsday talk from the coal companies? Any time any change has been mandated the coal companies have always had the same sad story that they can’t survive if they are forced into any kind of change not to their liking. People who have been around for many years knows this to be true.
We are not saying to kill all coal mining, only the most destructive method of the process. The state will survive if MTR is stopped. It thrived before MTR started and the state will survive once MTR is stopped. The small towns in southern WV were little boom towns years ago before MTR came and the deep mines were shut down. Thousands of miners lost their jobs because MTR was cheaper for the companies and our little communities died. Look at Whitesville. I was looking at all the shut up buildings that used to be bustling businesses yesterday on our way to Marshfork. The same goes with Madison and numerous small towns all over the coalfields.
No, MTR has been no bargain for the people of WV. It has been a boom for the companies that mine with that practice, but for the most part it has hurt this state and her people terribly in my opinion.