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(Jan. 18)
As part of the Governor's Task Force on Mountaintop Removal, I had a chance to study the practice. After considering all the testimony at public hearings, my own study, and various documents, it is my belief that mountaintop removal mining should be banned.
My conclusion comes from many sources. First, it is not economically useful. Coal mining is at best a temporary benefit to our state's economy. The historical record is overwhelming that the presence of coal mining does not contribute to the long-term economic health of West Virginia.
In counties where it is found, it is the dominant economic activity. Yet the economy does not thrive. If coal does anything for an economy, it is that it creates a prosperous economy for coal companies and temporary employment for some (although the number is declining) workers. It does nothing for the economy as a whole. If this were not true, the coal counties would not be the poorest in a poor state.
Regardless of how we feel about the coal in West Virginia, it is a dying industry. Coal from the western United States produces about two-thirds of the heat per pound (measured in British Thermal Units (BTU) as does coal from West Virginia, Kentucky, etc. It also sells for about 80 percent less a ton than does West Virginia coal.
Even with the transportation costs and lower heat of western coal factored in, a power plant in Cincinnati can still burn western coal at a substantially lower price per BTU than West Virginia coal. The western coal is lower in sulfur, making it attractive to those seeking to comply with the Clean Air Act.
There are some modifications that would have to be made in boilers at power plants to burn western coal. Reluctance to spend this money keeps West Virginia coal as a viable option in the short term. As the boilers age and are replaced, this will no longer be true. When the time comes that electric utilities have the equipment to burn either western coal or West Virginia coal, the economic pressures will drive them to western coal.
Deregulation of electricity prices can only make things worse for the West Virginia industry. Monopolies now insulate the utilities from some cost pressures since they can pass the cost to the consumer. With a free market for electricity, this will no longer be true. Utilities will be even more subject to price pressures than they are now. West Virginia coal cannot stand the price pressure forever.
There are also national and international pressures. The Kyoto Treaty on global warming and the phase-in of the Clean Air Act are indications that the world and the nation will no longer tolerate the level of pollution that coal produces.
The coal industry in West Virginia is dying. There may be room to quibble about the time frame, but there is no way we can ignore international pressures on climate change, the Clean Air Act, etc. Even were we able to ignore those, we cannot ignore the economic pressures of western coal.
Given the brevity of the future life of the coal industry in West Virginia, it is folly to continue allowing an industry to rip up our state in exchange for the short-term boost to the fortunes of a handful of mining companies and a shrinking number of workers.
Second, it is environmentally damaging. This should be an uncontroversial conclusion. The process takes millions of tons of dirt and rock and dumps it into valleys. It fills streams. It replaces living, growing forests with grass and (on rare occasions) struggling seedlings. To say that the mining is not environmentally damaging is ludicrous.
That the mining is environmentally damaging does not, of course, fully answer the question of whether we allow it to continue or not. Most things we do are environmentally damaging. Were there economic or social benefits that outweigh the environmental damage then the continuation of mountaintop removal mining would be an option.
Mountaintop removal mining is the most intrusive, most hideous, most environmentally destructive practice one can imagine. The very name says it all. Were it producing the best schools, the best roads, the healthiest people, and the most prosperous economy, then one might consider tolerating this practice. Since it is not, environmental damage on such a scale is not tolerable.
Third, the people oppose it. In the only published poll, those opposing it led those favoring it by 53 percent to 29 percent. By any measure, this is a landslide. This is in spite of a barrage of advertisements in newspapers and on television praising the practice. If we had an election in which only one party campaigned and that party still lost convincingly, we would conclude that the people had spoken resoundingly against the losing candidate. We can conclude no less here.
Fourth, mountaintop removal mining is illegal. The valley fills which are inevitably associated with mountaintop removal mining are wholesale violations of the Clean Water Act. Even were it not a wholesale violation of the Clean Water Act, the industry in West Virginia routinely ignores the legal requirements of post-mining land use.
The federal Surface Mining Reclamation and Control Act requires that land be used for an "industrial, commercial, agricultural, recreational, or public facility" use. Instead of preparing land for one of the legally allowed uses, the coal industry in West Virginia routinely plants grass, a practice to which it gives the creative euphemism of "wildlife habitat." These bogus "wildlife habitats" have no economic, social or environmental value. This method of reclamation does make the mining cheaper, making it beneficial to the coal industry. For West Virginia as a whole, it is of no benefit and, more to the point, illegal.
Fifth, mountaintop removal mining is immoral. The Methodists, the Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Lutherans and the Presbyterians have all passed resolutions opposing mountaintop removal mining. When the religious community speaks with such unanimity, it is only proper to give that some weight.
In addition to the overwhelming opposition from organized religion to mountaintop removal, there is a moral dimension to the question of the continued use of coal as a fuel. The use of coal as a fuel contributes to global warming, makes people sick from breathing polluted air, and contributes to acid rain. One might be able to justify it as a necessary evil until we can replace coal with cleaner sources of energy, but no one could contend that continuing to burn coal is a sound moral position.
By continuing to use its political influence to promote the use of coal, West Virginia is advocating for continued use of a socially damaging fuel. In doing so, it takes the morally suspect position of advocating a socially damaging practice because that practice serves the selfish purposes of its most politically powerful residents.
Were West Virginia not so strong an advocate of the continued use of coal, the nation could more easily move forward to a world of cleaner energy. Were we to be guided only by moral principles, we would work for the day when no coal will be burned.
To the extent that we can move away from coal to another energy source and an economy that does not rely upon coal, we have a moral obligation to do so.
Finally, and perhaps most persuasive in my consideration of mountaintop removal, is the attitude of the coal industry itself as demonstrated at the Nov. 17 public hearing of the governor's task force.
For longer than anyone can remember, the public policy of the state of West Virginia has been to do whatever it could to meet the needs of the coal industry. This has produced the second-poorest state in the nation, a state with hundreds of miles of streams dead from acid mine drainage, hundreds of miles of streams obliterated by valley fills, communities destroyed, and thousands of miners crippled with black lung.
Mountaintop removal mining could only be justified were this relationship reversed. Instead of designing public policy to meet the industry's needs, the industry must meet West Virginia's needs. Unless it is willing to do that, then there is no justification for mountaintop removal mining.
If there is any doubt about the industry attitude, consider the comments of frequent industry spokesman K.O. Damron. He railed against even the modest suggestions by the task force that the coal industry should take some steps to reduce the impact on communities. The suggestion - a suggestion compelled by common sense and human decency - that mining companies consider their impact on communities and try to minimize it was totally unacceptable to Mr. Damron.
There is, of course, the possibility that Mr. Damron is only the lunatic fringe of the coal industry, turned loose to make the rest of the industry seem reasonable by comparison. If he is typical, however, then we are not dealing with a reasonable industry. We are not dealing with an industry which is willing to accept necessary change.
Instead, we are dealing with an industry which has had so much power for so long that it is incapable of considering the possibility that it may not be allowed to do exactly what it wants. It is an industry that has historically put its needs before those of the public and sees no reason to change. We are dealing with an industry that will continue to do as it has always done until it is dragged kicking and screaming into a world where it must be a responsible citizen. We are dealing with an industry that will fight every step of the way. Given how far we would have to go to make mountaintop removal acceptable, there is little point in beginning that journey with such a recalcitrant industry.
For all those reasons, I conclude that mountaintop removal mining should be eliminated.
McFerrin, president of the Highlands Conservancy and member of the Governor's Task Force on Mountaintop Removal, is one of the Gazette's contributing columnists.
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