Citizens Oppose Mine

Proposed site near Cassville

Morgantown Dominion Post
27 May 2010
By Joel Danoy

More than 50 people filled the Cassville fire hall Wednesday night to voice their opinions on the pending permit for Patriot Mining Company’s proposed New Hill West Surface Mine.

In the first and only public comment meeting, the crowd was evenly split between coal miners working the current surface site and residents in the surrounding areas who could be adversely affected by the proposed site.

Measuring 225 acres and lasting for five years, the proposed site is northeast of Cassville, in Monongalia County’s Clay District.

The mine will operate around the clock, with blasting twice a day. More than 1,000 homes are within seven-tenths of a mile of the site, including 14 homes 300 feet away.

Opponents say the new surface mine will only further increase the damage to an already fragile ecosystem that struggles to survive amid the current and former mine sites.

John Wood, a Cassville resident of 17 years, said his house routinely shakes from the blasting at the current mine site. Among the six points of concern he mentioned, Wood said people living in the area deserve to enjoy their homes, the beauty of the area and not to have to worry about a polluted environment.

“This is our home, and we have a legal right to protect it,” he said. “We need to be concerned and fight to keep the integrity of our homes.”

In an effort to stress the importance of clean, usable water and the threat a mine presents to it, James Kotcen passed out bottles of Gatorade to the crowd.

“When you drink this, think about what it would taste like if it was made with the dirty runoff water created by these mines,” he said.

Many of the site’s opponents are concerned that Patriot Mining won’t stop with this site. Eva Thompson said officials at the mine site near her home told her she had two options: Forfeit a small portion of her land for a runoff pond or have the runoff diverted to a stream running alongside her property.

“It’s very disturbing to me that I had to choose,” she said. “I gave up the land, because I did not want it in that stream.”

With only one man speaking in favor of the site opposed to the nearly 15 who spoke against it, the meeting was ready to be adjourned before Jacob Hartley took the microphone.

Dressed in a blue suit lined with reflective gear, the native West Virginian said he only decided to speak after hearing everyone else. His great-grandfather was a coal miner and his father was a surface miner in Monongalia County.

“Everyone up here tonight, when they spoke said, ‘I came here, I came here.’ Well, my great-grandfather and my grandmother’s family lived down here in Scotts Run in the 1930s,” Hartley explained. “I was born here in West Virginia, and I don’t want to live anywhere else. But I don’t wont to see it destroyed either.

“You don’t hear anybody complaining about the shopping malls they put up on top of these hills. I don’t ever hear people protesting about all those heavy machines used to build the shopping malls. I see people up there running in and out of these high-end clothing stores and buying stuff. We don’t need those shopping malls.”

Hartley also addressed what he called the “human element,” as another aspect of the issue.

“We got some real good, young men working up there ... we don’t want coal forever, we know that, but this is what we got right now. We need to make a slow transition away from it.

“The main thing I keep hearing is the big coal corporations; well that’s not it. We’re just a bunch of regular guys trying to make a living. I don’t want my kids doing this. Maybe one day I can put my kids through college, so they don’t have to do this. But right now, we can’t just say, ‘Stop,’ we have to slowly transition.”

Randy Moore, permit supervisor for the W.Va. Department of Environmental Protection, said all the comments will be considered when the DEP makes it’s final decision on the permit in the next two months.