Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

The following is my summary of a report I heard today, May 23, on Democracy Now, a liberal 100% listener-supported news program hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. I get it whenever I can by downloading their podcast at: http://www.democracynow.org/. They can be heard on over 900 stations, but that's not a lot when you consider that they are spread across the United States.

You won't hear this kind of news unless you look for it. The country needs you to start looking for it. If you just sit back and wait, you'll be fed information by those whose interest in politics is to ensure they can become ever more wealthy. The richer people get, the more obsessed they become with wealth.

Massey Energy is a leader in mountaintop removal coal mining in the states of West Virginia, and Kentucky. The process begins with the detonation of an explosion the size of a Hiroshima bomb, which blasts open the top 400 feet of a mountain. This opens up the coal reserves to exploitation. The process is completed by filling the hole back in, as much as possible, and the excess materials, including unwanted toxins, are dumped into the valley below. Originally, they were required to fill the area in with topsoil, but one of the early accomplishments of the George W. Bush administration, was the ruling that they could just fill in the damaged area with the rubble and waste from the mining operation.

You can imagine what this does to the environment. The rivers are polluted and sometimes simply disappear into cracks in the ground caused by the explosion. Entire small towns are purchased ahead of time, and boarded up. Some 500 mountains have been destroyed over the last 10 years. The total acreage destroyed is estimated at 1.4 million acres, the size of Delaware.

Of course, we all know the necessity of this, right. First of all, West-Virginians depend on the good-paying jobs provided by the coal industry. Our national economy depends on the cheap electricity coal provides. As for pollution, we are told how the Environmental Protection Agency has run amuck with its ridiculous and trivial regulations. Unfortunately, this is all propaganda and the true story is an example of how big industry has taken control of our country.

Let's start with the jobs. The mountaintops are being blown off to save labor. With this technique, they can get away with hiring 70% fewer miners. Good-paying jobs for West Virginians? Think again. While the CEO of Massey Energy makes 30 million a year, West Virginia is ranked 49th in the nation in terms of poverty. Massey Energy led the way ten years ago in breaking the United Mineworkers Union and slashing wages. One of the results of this union-busting strategy is that Massey today prefers to hire people from out of state, running ads in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the Atlanta Constitution and in USA Today.

Regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency? Think again. Massey practices a policy of systematic obstruction and disregard for all environmental regulations. They have been cited 60,000 times for violating the Clean Water Act for a total of 1.8 billion dollars in fines. The West Virginia EPA, however, has never collected a penny. The federal EPA agreed that the fines should be reduced to 20 million. This from a company worth 7.1 billion dollars.

And there's the tax base, right? All that mining must be a real boondoggle for the local governments. Think again. The estimated annual tax revenue for blowing up a mountain is $30,000/year. The construction of a wind farm on the same mountaintop would provide 1.5 million annually in tax revenue, and this would continue indefinitely.

Behind this is a story of big money corrupting our political system. It has been estimated that the coal energy has invested a billion and a half dollars over the last 10 years to elect the right politicians and to influence the political process. The CEO of Massey Energy once spent 3 million dollars to ensure the defeat of a judge who had ruled against another coal company. When an appeal from Massey was being heard the same CEO was photographed on vacation on the French Riviera with a second judge hearing the case. And yes, surprise, Massey Energy won the appeal.

With the election in 2010 of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, they also have a senator they can count on to see things their way.

Friends and Relatives. Please start looking for this type of information. Our democracy and our future are in peril.