I guess West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is going to have to try a little bit harder … his statement in last night’s State of the State address just wasn’t enough:
We must continue to stand up for our coal miners and their families! We are not asking for a handout. All we’re asking for is the permission to work!
It seemed like Senate Majority Leader Truman Chafin, D-Mingo, was going to win the award for standing up the tallest to defend the coal industry, with his statements, blasting the Obama administration, before the session even started:
They have a whole new attitude about the coal industry. We just have to stand united.
But, judging from this report today in the Beckley Register-Herald, Chafin has fallen behind to Delegate Steve Kominar, D-Mingo, and Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone.
Check this out, from a meeting of the Joint Commission on Economic Development:
Kominar and Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone, zeroed in on the EPA’s insistence that mined-out mountains be restored to natural contours, with mountains even higher than the natural ones before coal was extracted, rather than be used to develop schools, golf courses, hospitals and the like, as has been accomplished at old mine sites.
“Fifty years from now, we’ll look back and say that (original contour restoration) was the worst thing we ever did in southern West Virginia,” Stollings told the commission.
OK … what the heck are they even talking about?
EPA is pushing mine operators to put more rock and dirt back onto mined areas, and less into streams. But there’s nothing in what EPA is asking for that stops mine operators from proposing post-mining land uses that would develop land they flatten, and obtaining variances from the approximate original contour reclamation standard if they do. That’s all still in the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, and in West Virginia law.
Let’s go over this yet again: The problem is that coal operators very seldom propose such post-mining developments, and state and federal regulators have for years let them get away with it. See previous posts on this here and here.
Then, Kominar challenged folks who criticize mountaintop removal to base their discussion on “scientific facts”:
Let’s not base this on emotions. If we’re doing something wrong in the mining industry, give us the opportunity to correct it.
You think Delegate Kominar has read the bombshell paper in the journal Science, which concluded that mountaintop removal’s environmental effects are “pervasive and irreversible” and called for a halt for new permits? (By the way, when Kominar says “we” he means it … he works for a coal trucking firm).
Maybe Sen. Stollings could walk him through it … Stollings is a physician after all. He might be interested in the reports from WVU’s Michael Hendryx and others that found:
Even after mine-site reclamation (attempts to return a site to premined conditions), groundwater samples from domestic supply wells have higher levels of mine-derived chemical constituents than well water from unmined areas. Human health impacts may come from contact with streams or exposure to airborne toxins and dust. State advisories are in effect for excessive human consumption of Se in fish from MTM/VF affected waters. Elevated levels of airborne, hazardous dust have been documented around surface mining operations. Adult hospitalizations for chronic pulmonary disorders and hypertension are elevated as a function of county-level coal production, as are rates of mortality; lung cancer; and chronic heart, lung, and kidney disease. Health problems are for women and men, so effects are not simply a result of direct occupational exposure of predominantly male coal miners.
When they’re done with that, they could give a read to the report “Coal’s Assault on Human Health,” published by the group Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Some of the stuff we’re likely to hear from lawmakers defending coal the next 60 days might make Gov. Manchin sound like some kind of “tree hugger.” It’s clear legislators didn’t get Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s memo that the coal industry should “embrace the future,” in which Sen. Byrd said:
Scapegoating and stoking fear among workers over the permitting process is counter-productive … When coal industry representatives stir up public anger toward federal regulatory agencies, it can damage the state’s ability to work with those agencies to West Virginia’s benefit. This, in turn, may create the perception of ineffectiveness within the industry, which can drive potential investors away.
As the session moves along, if Coal Tattoo readers pick up on more statements like those from Chafin, Kominar and Stollings, please pass them along to me either through the comments section on the blog or via e-mail.
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How is it that Mannix Porterfield failed to note the Science Mag study in response to Kominar’s comment?
Bravo!
Standing up is healthy — we need more healthliness in our nation.
It’s a shame that people don’t stand up sooner…and stay standing.
Example: http://www.standupforamerica.net/about.htm
Maybe there will be a standup4coal web site, but that would require more than just saying words so that might be too much to expect.
Kominar challenged critics of MTR to “not base this on emotions.” Does that same challenge apply to proponents of MTR? We can’t be vocally emotional about preserving our lives, health, homes, and communities, but they (some of them anyway) can be violently passionate about preserving their jobs? Sounds like a double standard: only the pro-MTR folks get to play the emotion card.
Full Kominar quote: ““Let’s base this on scientific facts. If we’re doing something wrong in the mining industry, give us the opportunity to correct it. But they can’t show us those numbers or those figures. It’s a Catch-22.”
I’m still trying to figure out what he’s talking about.
It’s all a bunch of misinformation, shouted loudly. Correct me, but EPA has nothing to do with AOC, right. How can a coal-state legislator not know this? And the fiction about putting the mountains back higher than they were. The comments are either deliberately misleading or illustrate woeful ignorance.
They say California suffers from too much democracy. West Virgina–where the state government functions as the coal industry’s enforcer–suffers from way too little.
It’s pretty sad.
Hey, it’s all part of the game — just play your roles and enjoy it — seeking logic in it is foolishness.
The next act: OSMRE Director Pizarchik tours WV… and Kennedy takes the stage.
[...] Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette – » W.Va. Legislature: The race to stand up more for coal blogs.wvgazette.com – view page – cached I guess West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is going to have to try a little bit harder … his statement in last night’s State of the State address just wasn’t enough: [...]
Mooney, I don’t think the residents standing up for their homes, being forced out of their homes (Lindytown), or being hit with massive floods exacerbated by clear-cutting and strip-mining, are “playing roles.” And I doubt that they enjoy it much.
rhmooney3 I respectfully disagree, this is not a game in any sense of the word, and I don’t enjoy having to fight to save the land around my home. There are many more enjoyable things to do in life than what we are being forced to do. There is no pay, no compensation, nor any joy of any kind in doing what we are being forced to do. The most that we get out of playing this “game” or “role playing” as you put it is scorn, threats and ridicule just for trying to save and preserve what we have worked our whole lives for.
I don’t mean to sound harsh, but trivializing this by calling it a game is insulting.
What;s been written and said has been done before — Ken can point back his articles a decade or more ago with the same things in them.
Words, more words then what?
If all of this is going anywhere, where is it going…and when?
Doing the same gets the same results.
Red, Im pretty sure that democracy is alive and well here in WV. I have voted in every election in the last 20 years. I, like most people, vote my wallet and what helps me the most.
[...] rest is here: Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette – » W.Va. Legislature: The race to … Tags: earthquake, gay-murder, haiti, latest, latest-gay, learn, manchin, own-headphones, puerto, [...]
No time to find words now, but the issue raised by mooney and nanette’s exchange is a deep one.
mooney sees the same patterns over and over, with no real progress, and advises — not resignation, but acting with detachment and a sort of cynical amusement, based on historical understanding.
Nanette can’t accept mooney’s conclusion that nothing much will change as a result of her actions; and she sure isn’t going to be amused, when she’s the one suffering.
I’m sure many philosphers have talked about these two states of mind .. .. pretty cool to see it come out here, in such a pure way. Thanks for the posts, the both of yez!
Aye let’s just hope that Hegel was right.
Expect the worse then you can only be surprised and never disappointed.
“Things don’t always go well for me, but I know that one of these days will be the best day of my life and that keeps me going,” says Charlie Brown to Lucy.
She replies: “What if you have already had it?”
There are many areas of our country where many thousands of acres, hundreds of square miles have been mined for coal and reclaimed to show the results afterwards.
It would behoove everyone to have an online forum that provides meaningful and accurate information for all interests.
An example of such a forum:
http://sofia.usgs.gov/sfrsf/
http://sflwww.er.usgs.gov/sfrsf/plw/sfrsf.html
Respectfully,
Even if we could fully reclaim surface mined land, it does not lessen or stop the health impacts to residents that Dr. Hendryx study or “Coal’s Assault on Human Health” has highlighted.
According to the recent study from top scientists (radio interview) it might take thousands of years for the land to be restored.
I personally think our Appalachian forest is amazing and under appreciated. Ginseng is very picky about where it grows as is many other valuable medicinal plants here in central Appalachia.
This time of the year is very beautiful and revealing, as one can see (especially with the snow) the “lay” of the land on the sides and tops of the mountains. We can see all the swags and gaps and even the finger ridges. Locals and old timers often talk of “the head of the holler or mouth of the holler”. As author Ann Pancake once commented that- “this landscape reminds me more of a human body than any landscape I have ever seen”.
Scott,
Some folks vote their self-interest, some vote hoping to craft a better world.
Reading here, I get the impression a lot of Appalachians vote their hearts. They seem to care about the land, their water and their history. But I don’t see them getting a lot of love from West Virginia’s politicians.
Your comment’s simultaneous expression of blunt self interest and thriving democracy is kind of interesting, but in a good way.
That is–as long as it’s not a dangerous fiction.
I’m sure that Blankenship fellow votes his wallet, too. It’s just his vote seems to get a lot more wallop than most–his wallet picks not only the governor and most of the state legislature, but a lot of the state judiciary, too. To an outsider it looks an awful lot like, well, Coalnana Republic.
In the meantime, I’ll take you on your word. Folks whose self interest is to protect the mountains shall also have a say. Democracy is alive and well in West Virginia; change might just be on the way.
Thank you Red Desert, many, many people vote with their hearts and try to do their best to choose the lesser of the evils that run for public office. I admit that voting for wallet issues is important, however it is not the most important thing in the world. Leaving a legacy of clean air and water for our children and their children is far more important to me than how much cash I can accumulate.
Remember the old saying, you can’t take it with you when you die. Money that is, but a lasting legacy can be left if we do the right thing for those who come after we are gone by leaving this a better place than we inherited. That means cleaning up the messes that we and the ones who came before us have made, and I will be the first to admit that is one tall order isn’t it? However I believe it is one cause that all people of conscience should embrace.
Voting your hearts huh? Hows that been working out for ya lately.