A decade ago, when the mountaintop removal issue blasted its way onto the front pages, my buddy Dan Radmacher was writing commentaries and editorials about it as The Charleston Gazette’s editorial page editor. These days, he’s in charge of the editorial page over at The Roanoke Times. But he still follows the issue, and I asked him to be a guest blogger today and give some reflections on where the issue has been and where it might be headed. (Read his Roanoke Times columns on a variety of issues here)
As I’ve followed the coverage of the growing mountaintop removal protests (mostly right here on Coal Tattoo), I haven’t  known whether to be heartened by the citizen involvement or dismayed that so little has changed since the debate began in earnest back in the late ’90s with Ken’s definitive “Mining the Mountains” series. (See here and here).
The controversy still pits West Virginians who care about the state’s defining mountains against West Virginians who believe sacrificing some of those mountains is necessary to keep their families fed – while the real profits get shipped out of state along with most of the coal blasted and scraped from the hills.
Federal and state regulators continue to let all West Virginians down by ignoring the clear meaning and intent of the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Regulation Act, and allowing coal companies to violate the social compact implicit in that legislation, namely that this massive environmental destruction would only be allowed in cases where something of lasting value and economic impact is left behind. Hope that the Obama administration might bring real change seems to dim every day.
Though my attention has been sporadic since I left West Virginia in 2003, I feel like I could drop right back into the heat of the debate with little problem – not because my recall of the intricacies of the issues is so brilliant, but because so little of substance has changed, at least from my perspective.
Ken Hechler, bless his 94-year-old soul, is still out there raising hell about it. The slogans and tactics of the counter-protesters don’t seem to have changed much, either.Â
But maybe there’s cause for hope. There’s a big Senate subcommittee hearing today, and Sen. Robert C. Byrd of all people is apparently sending his staff on a genuine fact-finding mission to investigate the impacts of mountaintop removal mining, something Ken rightly called a possibly “game-changing development.” The last time I saw Sen. Byrd weigh in on this issue is when he was raising his arms in the air on the Senate floor shouting that federal Judge Charles Haden was wrong in a clear ruling on how SMCRA ought to be enforced – a ruling that Byrd tried to have Congress overturn.
So maybe, after all this time, the winds of change are blowing. Maybe Obama will live up to his campaign promises to take a new approach to the regulation of mountaintop removal. Maybe Byrd will listen to the letter from Coal River Valley resident Bo Webb and make helping West Virginia move out of the  ”stranglehold of mountaintop removal coal operations” a far more lasting legacy than any of the hundreds of buildings, roads, interchanges, etc., that bear his name in the Mountain State.
Maybe. After all this time, it’s hard to hope. But if so many citizens of West Virginia and other activists can find the energy and hope to engage the way they have been, I guess hope shouldn’t be an impossible emotion for me. And it isn’t. But any anticipation I feel is most certainly tempered by the blazing heat of past hope dashed by the bitter cold of experience.Â
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Gone on too long and the picture of “miners” supporting MTR is indicative of everyone people , the press, state and federal governments, etc. in allowing the coal industry to define the issue as jobs vs. the environment when resolving the issue of MTR is much more complex.
Thank you Dan for this guest blog. I miss you at the Gazette. I used to wake up every morning and my first “thing to do” was to read your column in the Gazette. Your observations and editorials on coal mining issues made things much clearer for me and inspired me to be active. Ken Ward does a great job on the facts (Ken is priceless too), your added “take on things” was/is priceless. Sometimes I would read your columns over a cup of coffee and wonder if the president of the coal association was reading the same column -and if said president had a hard time not spitting out his coffee at your views.
It is good to see Dan back at the Gazette- even if but for a day on Ken’s blog.
Being born in far Southwestern VA, I understand that the need for income is so great that locale folks are willing to sacrifice their lives, as well as others. However, I don’t endorse what is, and has been, a horrific legacy involving coal. Yet, the USA keeps wanting more non-green energy. Electric cars are being promoted; where is all the electricity come from? In the 60′s and 70′s, alternative power sources were often mentioned in the media, including one that I remember from TV that showed mirror-farms that reflected sunlight onto water towers that produced steam, powering generators. Hydo-power, such as at Claytor Lake, are ideal. However, when that power is sold to Charlotte, NC, to appease stockholders, nearby locales suffer with higher costs. We have too few tax incentives for average Americans for individual homes. Demand continues to grow, even with a slow economy. AEP just requested another rate increase, much of the NRV and nearby areas, including W VA.
We must reach parity. The monopolistic gurus of electricity may as well suffer socialization; the cost degrades lifestyles as much or more than medical costs that are often subsidized. We’ve seen nothing yet: coming soon: higher costs, individuals that suffer, and an economy that may become, or is, within a depression. Let the stockholders take their greed with them.
Being born in far Southwestern VA, I understand that the need for income is so great that locale folks are willing to sacrifice their lives, as well as others. However, I don’t endorse what is, and has been, a horrific legacy involving coal. Yet, the USA keeps wanting more non-green energy. Electric cars are being promoted; where is all the electricity going to come from? In the 60′s and 70′s, alternative power sources were often mentioned in the media, including one that I remember from TV that showed mirror-farms that reflected sunlight onto water towers that produced steam, powering generators. Hydro-power, such as at Claytor Lake, is ideal. However, when that power is sold to Charlotte, NC, to appease stockholders, nearby locales suffer with higher costs. We have too few tax incentives for average Americans for individual homes to become more green. Demand continues to grow, even with a slow economy. AEP just requested another rate increase, affecting much of the NRV (VA Tech area) and nearby areas, including W VA.
We must reach parity. The monopolistic gurus of electricity may as well suffer socialization; the cost degrades lifestyles as much or more than medical costs that are often subsidized. We’ve seen nothing yet; coming soon: higher costs, individuals that suffer, and an economy that may become, or is, within a depression. Let the stockholders take their greed with them.