Who Will Help the Miner?

Who Will Help The Miner?

BioFuels and Energy | Main Street Economics | Racing for 2012

10/09/2012

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With less demand for coal and fewer jobs for miners, the Appalachian coalfields need a Presidential candidate who can help the region build a new way of life. So far, neither party has supported policies that will help the coal miner.

By Betty Dotson-Lewis

Coal miners listened to Republican Mitt Romney speak at a mine in Beallsville, Ohio, in August.  The Good Ol' Days of winning elections in the coalfields with a bull horn mounted on top of a winged-back car, pints of moonshine, a fistful of $20 bills and a fat cemetery register apparently have lost their appeal in the 2012 Presidential election.

Coal miners are facing dark days ahead and politicians seeking an endorsement from a coalminer may have to put up a job to get his vote.
Pink slips are being handed out by the hundreds as shifts come and go. Miners and their families are scared of what the future holds for coal country. Will they be able to stay in their homes and communities if there is no future for coal?

Smitty Smith of southwest Virginia got his pink slip today after 23 years with Alpha Coal working on a strip job. He has high school and college age children. His family is asking for prayers for another job — not a handout, or a speech from a politician filled with empty promises.
Miners have a history of banding together in tough times so their voices may be heard. And with fewer than 50 days until the Presidential election, there is no louder voice than the vote. However, many miners, including the 100,000 strong United Mine Workers of America are sitting out this election without endorsing a presidential candidate, according to UMW President, Cecil Roberts.

The UMWA historically has supported the Democratic candidate, but Roberts contends Obama’s strict and immediate enforcement of Environmental Protection Agency regulations will leave miners in the dark.
Problems in the coalfields are multiple and come from many directions, but politicians who understand the coal culture and genuinely care about the future of those living and working in Appalachia have the resources needed to resolve many of these threatening issues.  The most powerful resource the miner has is his vote.

Clean Air
One major problem is blamed on President Obama’s EPA. According to UMWA President Roberts, if and when fully implemented, these new regulations (Cross State Air Pollution rule in July 2011 and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule in December 2011) will severely cut back long-term use of coal as fuel for generating electricity.

An adjustment period has been requested to transition existing coal-fired plants into compliance over a period of time, but no additional time has been allowed so far. Also these government regulations mean it is not going to be economically feasible to build new coal-fired plants for many years, if ever, and as the current ones age the market for thermal coal will diminish.
There are nearly 600 coal generating facilities and 1,100 manufacturing facilities using coal in America. Job wise, you do the math.
Romney is faring no better with the airing of the 2003 ad where as Governor of Massachusetts, at a press conference in front of a coal plant, he vowed, “I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people. And that plant kills people.”

Black Lung
Republican leaders on the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee inserted language into the 2013 budget bill for the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) that would prevent the agency from spending any money to implement new proposed regulations that would reduce miners’ exposure to coal dust.

In West Virginia alone, over 2,000 miners have died of black lung over the last decade.  More than 70,000 have died since federal regulations were put in place in 1969.  This action from uncaring politicians is nothing less than a potential death sentence for miners.

Natural Gas, a Coal Competitor
Just when coal was most vulnerable, another blow struck the coalfields — the tapping of the Marcellus shale gas fields in West Virginia and surrounding states. The price of natural gas dropped below that of coal, and some utilities have taken this opportunity to make the investment, switching from coal to gas.
Coal production is already expected to fall by more than 103.3 million tons from 2011 to 2012. Coal’s usage in the electricity generation field fell below 40 percent in the last two months of last year. That had not happened since 1978.

Mother Nature 
Even Ol' Mother Nature seems to have a grudge against coal miners, giving the entire United States the winter of 2011–12, the fourth warmest on record, and reducing the need for power produced by coal. The eastern part of the country experienced uncommon warmth, exactly the part of the country where the nation’s coal production is used to generate power.

Who Will Help the Miner?
Three major events in less than one year have sent shock waves throughout the hollers and hills of the Appalachian coalfields:

1. An extremely mild winter

2. The price of natural gas dropping below that of coal

3. EPA’s regulations putting coal’s future as a fuel for electricity generation in question.
With the bleak outlook on mining as a job in Appalachia, what should miners’ demand from their political leaders?

At minimum, there should be a plan that would give coal companies and miners time to move out of a coal economy. Miners need to be retrained in jobs besides coal. And there needs to be a plan for building a new economy in the Appalachian coalfields.

Will either one of the Presidential candidates earn the miner's vote by helping him and his family find a way, a life, a future in the coalfields?

Betty Dotson-Lewis is a West Virginia writer.

The Preacher and Mountaintop Removal

Another good reason not to pollute the land. God lives in the same neigborhood!

By Betty Dotson-Lewis

The face of mountaintop removal. Brushy Fork Impoundment, Marfork Coal Co., a subsidiary of Massey Energy Corp., in Raleigh County, West Virginia

Sunday morning my friends who had gone to the Fellowship Hall for coffee and donuts after church service asked me, “What happened to you after the sermon?”
I told them, “I stayed to talk to the preacher about mountaintop removal.”
My friends were a little surprised that I thought the sermon was about abolishing mountaintop coal removal. The minister was preaching to a congregation generally made up those employed by NASCAR or Bank of America. The closest mountaintop removal coal mine was four hours and 230 miles due north.

You see, I am a temporary transplant from the center of mountaintop removal, the coalfields of West Virginia, to the outskirts of the Queen City (Charlotte) on Lake Norman in North Carolina. I was brought up in church, Southern Baptist, so one of my first duties when I arrived was to find a place to worship.

It came down to location. Williamson United Methodist Church has become my visiting church. The church is conveniently located on the main drag, meaning I could find my way to church and back home even before I bought a Garmin GPS. My small, rural hometown has a population of about 5,000 and one stoplight. We suffer few traffic jams. Mooresville, however, has become one of the favorite residential areas for those working in Charlotte and the dread of traffic jams has even become a prayer topic. My home church in West Virginia has a membership between 250 and 300 worshipers on holidays and when kids are home from college. Williamson has a membership of more than 1200. That’s a lot of Methodists to please when preparing Sunday sermons but even a Southern Baptist can appreciate a sermon delivered by a Circuit Methodist Preacher, if it is good.

That happened this Sunday.

The Preacher, Rob Fuquay, announced that Williamson United Methodist Church would be conducting a three-week experimental series called “Church without Walls.” The first sermon of this series was delivered Sunday. I was sure the Rev. Fuquay had West Virginia, mountaintop removal, and me in mind when he began quoting scripture. It didn’t seem a problem that I had not met the Preacher personally, that he didn’t know my name, or even that I was a Southern Baptist. I had talked to God about mountaintop removal. I had also written to our new President. I didn’t know who would answer first.

One of the first Bible verses the Preacher quoted was from Numbers 35:34: “Don’t desecrate the land in which you live. I, God, live in the same neighborhood with the People of Israel.” The Preacher said that according to Biblical teachings we are in charge of the earth.

We do not own it, but it is our responsibility to care for our environment. Again he quoted scripture, Psalm 24:1, “The earth is the LORD’S, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.”

Following hymns, taking up the offering and introducing a new church member, the Preacher told us he was deviating from the sermon as originally planned. Instead, Michael Lindsey, a church member and member of the church’s Green Team, joined the Preacher on the pulpit for discussion of the environment.

They talked about the protection and preservation of clean water. Lindsey explained the devastating effects of the number one problem to streams and rivers — runoff. He illustrated his point with a local example. Lindsey told the congregation that the Catawba River (from an Indian tribe, meaning “river people”) is the most endangered river in the U.S. The Catawba River rises in the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina about 20 miles east of Asheville. The river flows north of Morganton, then southeast through Lake Norman reservoir and on to South Carolina.

While he talked of the Catawba, my thoughts turned to two rivers near my West Virginia home, the Gauley and New rivers. I could see the breathtaking Appalachian Mountains densely covered with hardwoods and pines rising steeply on the sides of both rivers. The New River (the western hemisphere’s oldest river) and Gauley River have some of this country’s best whitewater rafting, bringing in millions of dollars to the state and our small rural communities each season. The Gauley’s complex stretch of whitewater, featuring more than 100 rapids, is ranked number seven in the world.

I spent five days back in the coalfields during Easter. I learned from friends and neighbors that 600 coal miners had been idled from their jobs, 300 in Boone County and 300 in Wyoming County. Market conditions were the cause for the layoffs in Boone County.
I also learned that Powellton Coal, a subsidiary of Consol Energy, has a permit pending before the state that would allow the company to remove the top of Gauley Mountain in Fayette County. To tear down Gauley Mountain for its coal is like blowing the cap off the Taj Mahal to retrieve a gold coin to spend at the local market.

Gauley Mountain is one of the most ruggedly beautiful areas you will see in West Virginia or any other state. As you wind around the switchback curves to the top you come to the small town of Ansted, population 1,600. Ansted rests on the high bluffs on U. S. Route 60 overlooking Gauley Mountain. Far below the New River rushes around the bends in the mountain to merge with the river at Gauley Bridge.

Ansted, once the hub of coalmine activities, was left high and dry in the ‘50s when the coal market slumped. Ansted remains an important part of West Virginia’s coal heritage, with a mining museum and more than one historical marker. Stonewall Jackson’s mother lies in a grave in the local cemetery, there’s a preserved antebellum mansion in town and Ansted is the site of the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel tragedy, where hundreds of African-American migrants workers died from silicosis while digging a tunnel through Gauley Mountain for a Union Carbide contractor. Ansted promotes its cultural heritage through the Ansted Historical Preservation Society.
Mountaintop removal mining is nothing new in the Appalachian coalfields. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that by 2012, after two decades of this type mining, sludge, rock and other mining waste will bury more than 1,000 miles of trout and other fresh water fish streams in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee. Mountaintop removal mines truck out about one ton of coal for every 16 tons of terrain displaced.

Mountaintop removal mining is nothing new to Ansted, but the Ansted Historical Preservation Council, along with the Sierra Club have elected to fight mountaintop removal of Gauley Mountain, one of West Virginia’s natural treasures. The two groups have filed an appeal with the state of West Virginia asking that Powellton Coal’s permit application for the 463.8-acre mine site on the mountain is denied. Their appeal claims the another strip mine operated by Powellton Coal has repeatedly exceeded water pollution limits, violating the Clean Water Act by dumping illegal levels of toxic aluminum, iron and suspended solids into Rich Creek, a trout stream that feeds into the Gauley River.

So Mr. Preacher, thank you for addressing the importance of protecting and preserving our environment — our clean water and our Appalachian mountains.
One more thing, Mr. Preacher. The last note I scribbled down from your sermon on the environment Sunday says it all: “If we follow God’s direction in taking care of the Earth, it will take care of us.”
Amen.

Betty Dotson-Lewis
B. L. Dotson-Lewis (Betty Dotson-Lewis), West Virginia author, was born in the coalfields of Southwest Virginia and grew up in the coalfields of West Virginia. Dotson-Lewis is the author of numerous articles and three books on Appalachia. The Sunny Side of Appalachia: Bluegrass from the Grassroots (2008); Sago Mine Disaster (Featured Story) Appalachian Coalfield Stories (2007); Appalachia: Spirit Triumphant (a cultural odyssey of Appalachia) (2004)