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This Too Is West Virginia

May 13th, 2008
By DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Assistant Editor, TMV Columnist


stripmine-3.png

This is a picture of a mountain in West Virginia. It has been mined for coal, which has been exported out of state to supply other states in the union, year after year for nearly 150 years.

This is only one of many mountain tops that have been ‘taken down’ for mining purposes in West Virginia.

Thousands of miners have died mining for coal to export to the rest of the USA. There have been over 150 large scale mining disasters caused by all manner of corporate neglect, also some very few due to operator error or sudden underground flooding.

The West Virginia Mine Disasters Record from 1884 to the present, lists 39 men lost at the Mt. Brook Mine in 1886… and in the years therafter, there were many many mining disasters in which over 100 men were lost each time. One of the last listings is a disaster in our own time, The Sago Mine Disaster…. one that most of us witnessed the mishandling of via the press, when it was announced on TV two days after the mine explosion, that all 13 miners trapped underground were alive.

The joy felt by the survivor families and the children of the miners –and the nation watching was so profound — and also shortlived. Shortly after the first report, in surely the worst heart-shattering correction any news agnecy has ever had to make, came the factual news: The earlier report had somehow been mis-stated: 12 of the 13 men were in fact dead.

West Virginians are diverse and dedicated and, joined with environmentalists and lawmakers, many want very much to see the state move away from doing the bone-breaking dirt-deep work of supplying the nation with coal…to instead develop and take on jobs that are not guaranteed to destroy health, that are not pre-destined to most assuredly kill the workers…by fire, by poison, by lung disease.



This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 6:52 pm and is filed under West Virginia, Primaries, Newsweek Blogitics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 4 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    And yet, we will still need coal.
    • ^
    • v
    You point is accurate dear Slamfu. A lot of good people are working on 'how to' convert from that to other.

    When I was reading on the coal mining issue yesterday, in addition to the profound loss of fathers and sons and grandfathers and brothers in the mines, I found that also we have exported coal ... continually, literally selling away huge mountain tops of land ...some day, there wont be any more mountain tops of coal, either.

    I can see the arguments for not all at once destabilizing the economy of an entire state, and not destabilizing trade income, and not destabilizing the rest of the nation in terms of say, heating fuel in winter. But like I imagine you are too, I'd like to know where there are progressions away from 'the old way', rather than bus. as usual. Hopefully, another topic for another time at tmv.


    dr.e
    • ^
    • v
    I had a lot of sympathy for WV.
    The people are caught beween needing the income provided by coal industry jobs and the devastation of land plus the pollution of water.

    The feds intervened to make it easier for coal strip miners to evade land restoration an pollution prevention requirements.
    It's a big problem, with conflicting needs to be met.

    Then, I saw a man showing offf a T-shirt with Obama portrayed as a monkey.
    I hoped we had left that kind of crude racism behind, but there was the T-shirt, with happy onlookers all around.

    It made me sick. For the moment, my sympathies for WV are not at the forefront of my thoughts.,
    I'm ashamed of my America., .
    • ^
    • v
    With power production:

    "And yet, we will still need coal."

    Of course we will. Coal and nuclear are the cheapest ways we can generate the power we need and build new plants for the additional power we will need (no, conservation will never be the solution, and that's without accounting for growth in population and economy in the future not to mention getting more computers into more people's hands, for example). Nuclear is fought by the ignorant and by the misguided; nuclear is also horribly expensive to set up, unlike coal. (It seems to be competitive insofar as operating costs go -- both coal and nuclear are cheap; nuke plants don't use much fuel.) Here in Iowa or near it, at least one new coal plant has been built and nearby (in Iowa) a new coal plant is getting approval (though it is being fought by numerous activists). I'm not only situated near the true Main Street of the USA, Interstate Highway 80 (ask any trucker), but also near the main line between the Powder River Basin coal source(s) in Wyoming and coal plants to the East. (Around West Virginia and Virginia you will also see lots of long coal trains.) This (Iowa) is serious railroading country, with long rails with few welds and concrete ties. Serious money goes into this roadbed because it's for serious railroading, including coal train after coal train after coal train, which impress me when they go by more than any super-efficient, modern-for-decades double-stack train. Coal plants are voracious consumers. And a lot of our coal goes all the way to Newport News -- to be shipped overseas. Coal is big, big, big.


    http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stori...

    [UP, Iowa and elsewhere]

    http://www.uprr.com/customers/energy/coal/index...

    http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/maps/sysmap.shtml



    [WV, VA ...]

    http://www.csx.com/?fuseaction=customers.coal_s...


    The present is coal, supplemented or replaced where possible or necessary by natural gas, either to supply peak load capability or to reduce air pollution (by replacing current coal or oil plants).

    Now just think if coal liquefaction becomes a practical, economic short-to-medium-term way to supplement oil imports, which likely will triple in the next twenty years barring external interferences.

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