http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/10/822988/-Its-Only-AppalachiaIn the Appalachians, it's okay to take the most sacred site in the history of American labor, the battlefield where union miners fought not just against mercenaries sent in to eradicate them and their families but against bombers sent by their own government, and to delist that site from the Park Service register of national historical sites.
Why would anyone allow the Park Service to delist a battlefield where over 100 men died and nearly 1000 of those who lived were tried for "treason against a state?" We do it for the same reason we tear down the mountains, for the same reason we eradicate the forest, for the same reason we destroy the communities, for the same reason we fill in the streams. We do it for the money.
It's not the jobs. Mountaintop removal mining takes fewer workers than the underground mining it replaces. MTR doesn't compete with surface mining in the west, it directly competes with eastern mines that take more workers but cause far less damage to the environment. Mountaintop removal costs jobs, and it always has.
It's not because we need the coal. Mountaintop removal provides less than 10% of the coal we consume nationally, and all of that coal, every bit, could be easily replaced by other production. Watch how the stock of companies given permits for MTR jumps even though there's no demand for additional coal in the market. Even if we didn't lift a finger to change our demand for coal (and many of the sites now permitted for mountaintop removal are among the best locations for wind power in the east), MTR coal simply replaces other coal -- it allows mining companies to close higher cost mines. You know, the ones that are "less efficient," meaning they have more workers or they require reclamation of the mined land.
We allow mountaintop removal because mountaintop removal is cheaper. Not enough cheaper that it makes any difference in the price of coal on the market -- hey, we're only talking 10% of the production after all -- but cheap enough that it puts millions of extra bucks into certain pockets. Pockets like those of men who think they can buy Supreme court judges. Pockets of men who can and do buy politicians at all levels of government. Men who can spend millions promoting the idea that there is no choice but to destroy the land for short-term jobs.
This past week, a study from the National Academy of Sciences confirmed what many have known all along. The effects of mountaintop removal mining are "pervasive and irreversible." This type of mining is not only unmatched in its destruction, but an unmatched threat to public health. It's simply not worth it.
-snip-
That's what the science says, but that's not what the Obama administration is saying. Just this week the EPA issued several new permits for mountaintop removal. This practice isn't ending, it's accelerating, and it seems that this administration will do nothing to stop it. Studies showing that Coal River Mountain could produce more energy and more jobs -- and do so for far longer -- by adding a wind power facility that would leave the mountain intact were ignored. The freshly permitted mine there has already started operations. Blair Mountain was added to the National Register last March with great fanfare after decades of effort, but on January 8, 2010, Carol Schull, Chief of the National Register for the Park Service, announced that it was being delisted. Unless something changes, Blair Mountain will be destroyed by a non-union mountaintop removal mine. It won't be a historic site. It won't even be a mountain. Both the men and the battlefield on which they fought will be only ghosts.
But hey, it's only Appalachia. We'll pretend that we're saving people's jobs while we take away their future. We'll say that there's no choice while we ruin the landscape, spoil the waters, and pollute the air. We'll talk about how tough and self-reliant the people of the mountains are, and how they don't need outsiders interfering. Then, once we've scraped away the last ton of coal, we'll leave behind the poorest communities in the nation. It's what we've always done.
The diary also links to this page at ILoveMountains.org
http://ilovemountains.org/science/and this page at Appalachian Voices
http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/
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