{"id":301063,"date":"2010-02-10T06:00:43","date_gmt":"2010-02-10T11:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=76219"},"modified":"2010-02-10T06:00:43","modified_gmt":"2010-02-10T11:00:43","slug":"the-story-of-coal%e2%80%99s-dirty-deadly-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/301063","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Coal\u2019s Dirty, Deadly Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_76227\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 490px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/mtntop.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-76227\" title=\"20080201_ave_t14_726.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/mtntop-480x317.jpg\" alt=\"A mountaintop mine in West Virginia (Rick Eglinton\/Toronto Star\/ZUMA Press)\" width=\"480\" height=\"317\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A mountaintop mine in West Virginia (Rick Eglinton\/Toronto Star\/ZUMA Press)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Most of us take it for granted that when we flip the switch, the lights will go on. Sure, we write the electric company a monthly check, but otherwise lend no thought to the source of the power &#8212; like urban kids clueless that chicken originates someplace other than the freezer aisle of chain groceries.<\/p>\n<p>But this month, an energetic author from the rugged, coal-laden hills of southern Illinois hopes to relay the message &#8212; utterly apropos in a country where coal generates nearly half the electricity &#8212; that a consequence of that national dependence is the outright decimation of the communities surrounding the mines.<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_3032\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 145px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3032\" title=\"environment\" src=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/environment.jpg\" alt=\"Image by: Matt Mahurin\" width=\"130\" height=\"130\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image by: Matt Mahurin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"floatButtons\">\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/digg.com\/tools\/diggthis.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"\n\tsrc=\"http:\/\/d.yimg.com\/ds\/badge2.js\"\n\tbadgetype=\"square\">\n\t<?php the_permalink(); ?><\/script><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\">\n\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\ntweetmeme_source = \"TWI_news\";\ntweetmeme_service = \"bit.ly\";\n<\/script> <script src=\"http:\/\/tweetmeme.com\/i\/scripts\/button.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left;\"><a name=\"fb_share\" type=\"box_count\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php\">Share<\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/static.ak.fbcdn.net\/connect.php\/js\/FB.Share\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Jeff Biggers, a civil rights activist and cultural historian, watched helplessly a dozen years ago as the hollers of Eagle Creek, Illinois &#8212; a corner of the Shawnee National Forest and his family\u2019s home for roughly 200 years &#8212; were blasted away, the forested hills bulldozed under by companies intent on harvesting the lucrative coal seams beneath &#8212; a scene from Avatar playing out in real time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019ve strip-mined your heritage,\u201d Biggers\u2019 uncle told him at the time.<\/p>\n<p>The tragic episode launched Biggers on a decade-long examination of the history of the coal industry\u2019s impact on local communities &#8212; not only the environmental imprint, but the effects on culture, health and family history as well. The result is \u201cReckoning at Eagle Creek &#8212; The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland,\u201d released last week, in which Biggers describes the industry\u2019s utter disregard for everything standing between it and the coal it wants out of the ground. It&#8217;s an apt study as the Obama administration advances its &#8220;clean coal&#8221; agenda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe old pond, the four plum trees, the sorghum and cornfields, the garden, the barn, and the one-hundred-fifty-year-old log cabin were buried in a crater formed before the Paleozoic era,\u201d Biggers writes of his family\u2019s experience with strip mining. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t just our family history. It also included a thousand years of bones of the first natives in the region, the modern Shawnee encampments and farms, the pioneering squatters and homesteaders in our family, and the slave and coal miners in one of the first settlements in the nation\u2019s heartland &#8212; all of which had been churned into dust in the race to strip-mine the area.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All told, the miners hauled an estimated 960,000 tons of coal from his family\u2019s property and the adjacent plots &#8212; \u201cenough electricity to supply American demands for approximately four and a half hours,\u201d Biggers writes. \u201cThat was the choice we made.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The book isn\u2019t all. Biggers has also <a id=\"l_9:\" title=\"adapted\" href=\"http:\/\/coalfreefutureproject.org\/#wrap\">adapted<\/a> the story for the stage, taking the two-man show &#8212; \u201cThe Saudi Arabia of Coal\u201d &#8212; on <a id=\"e6:n\" title=\"a 22-city tour\" href=\"http:\/\/coalfreefutureproject.org\/#page_68\">a 22-city tour<\/a> that arrives this week at Busboys and Poets in Washington. The story &#8212; about a strip miner and his wife faced with losing their home to the very project providing their income &#8212; features Biggers and Stephanie Pistello, a community organizer with Appalachian Voices, a North Carolina-based environmental group. Both are products of Appalachia; both are grandchildren of coal miners. The driving force behind the play, Biggers said in a phone interview last week, was simple: \u201cHow do we bring strip mining to people who have never seen it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a timely story. For all the <a id=\"yr:i\" title=\"scientific warnings\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OSekZehD6rc\">scientific warnings<\/a> about the warming effects of coal combustion, the White House continues to view the fossil fuel as central to the nation\u2019s energy future. Indeed, President Obama last week <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/presidential-memorandum-a-comprehensive-federal-strategy-carbon-capture-and-storage\" >announced<\/a> the creation of a new \u201ccarbon capture\u201d task force charged with developing new \u201cclean coal\u201d technologies. The administration hopes to have between five and 10 new commercial facilities featuring these advancements up and running by 2016.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven if you disagree on the threat posed by climate change,\u201d Obama said, \u201cinvesting in clean energy jobs and businesses is still the right thing to do for our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Obama was referring to coal processing, not extraction. But in the eyes of a growing number of environmentalists and human rights advocates, the administration\u2019s alacrity to embrace coal &#8212; combined with the <a id=\"vkh:\" title=\"mixed\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/43861\/epa-mining-decisions-favor-coal-industry\">mixed<\/a> <a id=\"ci85\" title=\"signals\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/46679\/epa-signals-stricter-mining-rules\">signals<\/a> from the Environmental Protection Agency on mining permits &#8212; likely means that coal communities will remain vulnerable to the ravages of strip mining for many years to come.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe see this as a criminal activity,\u201d Biggers said. \u201cAnd if you recognize there\u2019s criminal activity taking place, how can you minimize it [instead of banning it]? It\u2019s their mentality that they can regulate this crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Human rights activists are hoping that <a id=\"icwh\" title=\"Congress\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/49008\/congress-takes-on-mountaintop-mining\">Congress<\/a> will step in to eliminate the most destructive forms of <a id=\"tir6\" title=\"strip mining\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Surface_mining\">strip mining<\/a>, a method featuring the removal of all materials (rock, soil, trees, etc.) resting on top of the coal. (That contrasts with underground mining, in which tunneling allows the overlying land to remain intact.) Of particular concern in Appalachia is one type of strip mining, known as <a id=\"a35p\" title=\"mountaintop removal\" href=\"http:\/\/mountainjusticesummer.org\/facts\/steps.php\">mountaintop removal<\/a>, in which the peaks of mountains are blasted away and the debris pushed into adjacent valleys, many of which contain tiny streams representing the headwaters of much larger rivers below. Bipartisan bills introduced in both the <a id=\"mz7_\" title=\"Senate\" href=\"http:\/\/www.opencongress.org\/bill\/111-s696\/show\">Senate<\/a> and the <a id=\"to:1\" title=\"House\" href=\"http:\/\/www.opencongress.org\/bill\/111-h1310\/show\">House<\/a> would end mountaintop removal by prohibiting such dumping into active streams. There appears, however, to be little congressional appetite to challenge the powerful mining industry in a tough election year when unemployment remains near double digits.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My miners and the folks who are working and those who are unemployed are very concerned about some of your policies,&#8221; West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R) <a id=\"p:8g\" title=\"told\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wvgazette.com\/coaltattoo\/2010\/01\/29\/president-obama-calls-for-coal-to-make-transition\/\">told<\/a> Obama last month, referring in part to the EPA&#8217;s denial of some mountaintop permits. &#8220;In our minds, these are job-killing policies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At a much-watched debate on mountaintop mining in Charleston, W.Va., last month, Don Blankenship, president of Virginia-based Massey Energy, echoed Capito&#8217;s concerns. \u201cThe mission statement for coal is prosperity for this country,\u201d Blankenship <a id=\"tjdv\" title=\"said\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/74539\/coal-exec-let-us-blow-up-the-appalachians-or-well-all-be-speaking-chinese\">said<\/a>. \u201cThis industry is what made this country great and if we forget that, we\u2019re going to have to learn to speak Chinese.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The adverse health effects associated with coal mining have, of course, been known for decades. Biggers&#8217; grandfather was among the tens of thousands of miners to die of coal workers&#8217; pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease. Though the cases of black lung are down considerably relative to historic highs, more than 10,000 American miners <a id=\"griz\" title=\"died\" href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB126083871040391327.html\">died<\/a> of the disease in the last decade alone.<\/p>\n<p>But health problems are only one part of coal\u2019s dubious legacy, critics argue. Coal communities also suffer from poisoned streams, the noise pollution associated with blasting and the barrage of heavy machinery constantly lumbering along local streets. In short, they just aren\u2019t great places to live.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver 1,200 miles of waterways had been sullied and jammed with mining fill,\u201d Biggers writes of mountaintop mining&#8217;s effect on Appalachia. \u201cBlasting and coal dust had made life unbearable for anyone in the strip-mined areas. Wells had been busted and polluted with toxic waste. \u2026 The history was clear: Coal was not cheap, and coal was not clean.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Backing that argument, Forbes magazine last November <a id=\"jkc5\" title=\"deemed\" href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/2009\/03\/11\/best-states-living-lifestyle-health-wellness_slide_2.html?thisspeed=25000\">deemed<\/a> West Virginia &#8212; the second largest coal-producing state and a hot-bed of mountaintop removal sites &#8212; the worst state in the country to live, ranking it 50th in \u201cwell being,\u201d \u201clife evaluation,\u201d and physical and emotional health. That\u2019s no coincidence, says Biggers, contending that the tactics employed by the coal industry all but ensure that coal communities will be one-industry towns.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs long as they keep those communities poor, they can continue to plunder Appalachia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>For all the wealth that Appalachia\u2019s coal beds have brought to coal executives and corporate shareholders, the money isn\u2019t exactly trickling down to local communities. Indeed, West Virginia <a id=\"i::y\" title=\"ranks 49th\" href=\"http:\/\/factfinder.census.gov\/servlet\/GRTTable?_bm=y&amp;-_box_head_nbr=R1901&amp;-ds_name=ACS_2008_1YR_G00_&amp;-_lang=en&amp;-format=US-30&amp;-CONTEXT=grt\">ranks 49th<\/a> in the country in per capita median income, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, with a median household income of $37,989 &#8212; well below the national median of $52,029. Only Mississippi families fare worse.<\/p>\n<p>Coal critics say that the message is beginning to sink in among residents of coal towns. Although recent protests have featured <a id=\"lme-\" title=\"the arrests\" href=\"http:\/\/climateimc.org\/en\/press-releases\/2009\/06\/25\/us-dr-james-hansen-and-daryl-hannah-arrested-protest-mountaintop-removal\">the arrests<\/a> of such prominent figures as actress Daryl Hannah and climate scientist James Hansen, Biggers says the backlash against strip mining is being led by locals fed up with seeing their communities decimated. \u201cWe\u2019re all children and grandchildren of coal miners,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only people defending coal companies are on their payroll.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This charge could extend to Capitol Hill, where coal-country lawmakers &#8212; backed by <a id=\"n6e:\" title=\"considerable donations\" href=\"http:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/industries\/indus.php?ind=E1210\">considerable donations<\/a> from the giants of the coal industry &#8212; have built careers defending those companies, usually in the name of creating jobs for their constituents.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an argument, critics maintain, designed simply to insulate the industry from stricter regulations on tactics like mountaintop removal, which actually rely more on dynamite and heavy machinery than they do manual labor. Indeed, while U.S. coal production is at an all-time high, the number of mining jobs <a id=\"tpc0\" title=\"has dropped off considerably\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sourcewatch.org\/index.php?title=Coal_and_jobs_in_the_United_States#Coal_mining_jobs\">has dropped off considerably<\/a> in recent decades. Just 25 years ago, coal mining employed more than 169,000 workers, according to the Energy Information Administration. In 2006, the figure had fallen below 83,000.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf mountaintop removal disappeared tomorrow we would start creating jobs,\u201d Biggers said, advocating for more sustainable projects. Community groups, for example, are hoping to thwart Massey&#8217;s plans to level West Virginia&#8217;s <a id=\"g92f\" title=\"Coal River Mountain\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ilovemountains.org\/coalriver\/\">Coal River Mountain<\/a>, pushing instead for a wind farm they say will sustain more jobs and bring in more tax revenue for the state &#8212; all without destroying one of the oldest mountains in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Yet Biggers is also aware that numbers and statistics, whatever secrets they might reveal, can never be as persuasive as real stories of human suffering in the face of privation. His play, he hopes, will bring that tale &#8212; his tale &#8212; to audiences sitting hundreds, even thousands of miles from coal country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all relate to the human story,\u201d Biggers said. \u201cWe all relate to a sense of loss. Hopefully, this can change more minds than all the statistics I could rattle off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the very least, he\u2019s provided something to think about the next time we flip on the lights.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe Saudi Arabia of Coal\u201d will be at <a id=\"rc2:\" title=\"Busboys and Poets\" href=\"http:\/\/www.busboysandpoets.com\/\">Busboys and Poets<\/a> in Washington on Wednesday, Feb. 10, starting at 9 p.m. Afterward, the show will move to Pittsburgh (Feb. 11) and New York City (Feb. 27) before moving on to the West coast.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mountaintop mine in West Virginia (Rick Eglinton\/Toronto Star\/ZUMA Press) Most of us take it for granted that when we flip the switch, the lights will go on. Sure, we write the electric company a monthly check, but otherwise lend no thought to the source of the power &#8212; like urban kids clueless that chicken [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4315,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-301063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}