Bill Would Prohibit Dumping Waste into Streams
Associated Press
11 February 2010
Dena Potter, Associated Press Writer
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Opponents of mountaintop removal coal mining
gathered in Virginia and Kentucky on Thursday in support of bills that
would ban coal companies from dumping the rock and rubble they blast
off the tops of mountains into nearby streams.
In Virginia, opponents were outnumbered by coal miners and industry
supporters, many of whom drove up to six hours to attend a public
hearing on a bill they said would put them out of work.
It was the first time legislation was introduced to curb surface mining
in Virginia. Similar efforts in Kentucky have failed the last five
years. No action was taken on the bills.
Supporters of the bills said mountaintop mining has scarred vast swaths
of Appalachia and ruined waterways. Mining supporters say the bills
would eliminate thousands of jobs and devastate areas of the states
that already are the most economically depressed.
Matt Wasson with Appalachian Voices, an environmental group opposed to
mountaintop removal mining, showed aerial pictures of decapitated
mountains in Wise County, Va., where he said an area comparable to
Washington, D.C., could fit into areas affected by surface mines.
"The mountains that have been lost can never be brought back," he said.
"The streams will be polluted for a long time."
Wasson was one of more than 100 supporters to travel to Virginia's
Capitol for the hearing. A planned rally was called off when more than
200 coal supporters, most wearing black "Yes Coal, Yes Jobs" T-shirts
crowded outside the room where the hearing was to be held.
In Kentucky, some 600 supporters of the bill braved temperatures in the
mid-20s to march through Frankfort waving banners and placards calling
for an end to mountaintop removal.
"It's one of the worst things I have ever seen," said Viktoria
Safariah, a native of Armenia and a Transylvania University sophomore
who waved a sign that read: "Topless mountains are obscene."
In mountaintop removal mining, forests are cleared and rock is blasted
apart to get to coal buried underneath. The leftover dirt, rock and
rubble are dumped into nearby valleys, sometimes covering streams.
The practice has for years been a source of contention between coal
operators, who say it is the most effective way to get at the coal, and
environmentalists, who say it has irreversibly harmed the mountains and
streams.
Mountaintop removal mining is widely used in West Virginia, Virginia,
Kentucky and Tennessee, producing 130 million tons of coal annually.
Throughout Appalachia, environmentalists have been fighting to stop
mountaintop removal, holding protests, filing lawsuits against federal
agencies and coal companies, pushing for legislation at the state and
federal level to ban the practice, and more recently through civil
disobedience.
"Nonviolent civil disobedience is not the wrong thing to do," said
Mickey McCoy, a retired teacher from Inez, Ky., and a member of the
environmental group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. "We must stand
ready to lay our bodies down."
Opponents say mountaintop removal provides jobs.
At least 1,600 of Virginia's 4,600 mining jobs are in surface mines.
Tommy Hudson of the Virginia Coal Association said the job losses would
be "catastrophic."
"The coal industry would be devastated. There would be massive
hemorrhaging of other jobs, of non-coal jobs, and economic development
efforts would be paralyzed," he said.
Hudson said the bill was not about saving streams, but was intended to
put the coal industry out of business and to raise money for
environmental groups.
"They need controversy and a crisis and a cause to keep their revenue
stream flowing," Hudson said. "Perhaps that's what they mean when they
call this a 'stream saver' bill."
Supporters showed pictures of airports, industrial parks, prisons,
schools and other commercial and residential development on reclaimed
mountaintop removal mine sites.
Billy Campbell, a mining company consultant from Buchanan County, Va.,
compared mining opponents' pictures of barren hilltops where mining was
under way to photos of an open-heart surgery, with the patient's ribs
cracked and the doctor's hands in his chest.
"We understand that it is the end result that is the most important,"
he said.
Strother Smith, an Abingdon, Va., attorney, said the proposal violated
Virginia's constitution because it targeted one specific enterprise and
not the general populace.
"If you think it needs to pass, make it a constitutional amendment and
put it on the ballot. I have no problem at all taking this before the
Supreme Court," Smith said.
In Kentucky, country music singer Kathy Mattea called for a dialogue
between people on both sides of the divisive issue.
Mattea said mountaintop removal leads to "terrible environmental
destruction," but she said the miners who make their livings in the
coalfields "can't be tossed away." "We are not enemies," she said. "We
are brothers and sisters in conflict."