Costly Coal

Washington, D.C. Coal remains America’s most available source of electric energy. We tend to ignore, however, the high price society pays first for the mining and then for the burning of coal. On a visit to West Virginia, I learned in detail of the damage that strip mining routinely inflicts upon environment and people.

Since the mid-1990s, ARCO Coal Company has bought up and demolished approximately two thirds of the 200 homes of the community of Blair, 70 miles south of Charleston along Route 17. The rock from blasting openings into the nearby mountaintop’s coal deposits has gradually been filling a section of the valley.

By 1997 it became known that ARCO planned an extension of its 8,000-acre mine on Route 17 by removing another mountaintop of 3,000 acres on the other side of the road. Experts estimated that the debris would likely bury over a mile of the valley and its stream, the Little Coal River.

Fed up with this massive threat to the land and the residents around Blair, the West Virginia Conservancy and alarmed residents sued to stop Arco’s projected new mine. In 1998, the court found that the removal of the mountaintop ”would cause significant irreversible damage” and ordered the regulatory agencies to evaluate the extent of the damage and to propose measures to reduce it.

Earlier last year--eight years after the court’s order--, the Army Corps of Engineers issued an environmental impact statement, calling for “mitigation” of the anticipated damage and a reduction of the mine’s area from 3,000 to 2,278 acres. The Corps did not even mention the probability that seven miles of the valley’s stream might be buried under the mine’s debris.

Now angry area residents are in the process of formulating their objections to the Corps’ impact statement, before final permits in March allow ARCO to start its dredging and stream-filling activities. The plaintiffs’ brief will certainly be citing the federal Clean Water Act that allows dredging and filling only when causing minimal environmental damage, “individually and cumulatively.”

According to the Conservancy’s Highland Voice, “from 1992 through 2002, mountaintop removal mining and associated valley fills in Appalachia destroyed over 1,200 miles of streams and nearly 400,000 acres of forests (an area about ten times the District of Columbia).” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service described the environmental impact of coal mining on Appalachia’s aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems as “unmitigatable” and “unprecedented.”

Amazingly, in its impact assessment, the Corps ignored most of the residents’ concerns: the danger of ground movements and air pollution caused by the blasting, potential flooding in the valley, the disruptions of daily life by the blasting noise, increased traffic from coal trucks, the destruction of the area’s scenic beauty and wild life, and, most of all, the severe loss of real property values.

Opponents of more strip mining suggested that the time had come to produce electric energy from wind farms. When, however, such a project was proposed in West Virginia’s Greenbriar County, a residents’ organization, called Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy, opposed wind farms as adamantly as strip mines. Critics pointed out that windmills would destroy the area’s scenic attraction, endanger the bird population, and reduce property values. Nevertheless, the permanent environmental and social cost of big strip mines makes the damage caused by wind farming seem small.

Spokespersons for coal companies and wind farms callously suggested that residents who do not appreciate the economic progress brought by their industries ought to move elsewhere. Yet, whether the victims of the energy industry’s expansion absorb their losses quietly or seek redress of their grievances from government agencies or courts, rarely, if ever, do they get adequately compensated for all the tangible and intangible losses they suffer.

Just like the robber barons of America’s first industrial revolution, today’s coal, petroleum, and wind energy industries continue to profit immensely at the expense of thousands of individuals, as well as American society at large.

Wolf D. Fuhrig	Home	01-28-07
Costly Coal
*Washington, D.C.* Coal remains America’s most available source of electric energy. We tend to ignore, however, the high price society pays first for the mining and then for the burning of coal. On a visit to West Virginia, I learned in detail of the damage that strip mining routinely inflicts upon environment and people. Since the mid-1990s, ARCO Coal Company has bought up and demolished approximately two thirds of the 200 homes of the community of Blair, 70 miles south of Charleston along Route 17. The rock from blasting openings into the nearby mountaintop’s coal deposits has gradually been filling a section of the valley. By 1997 it became known that ARCO planned an extension of its 8,000-acre mine on Route 17 by removing another mountaintop of 3,000 acres on the other side of the road. Experts estimated that the debris would likely bury over a mile of the valley and its stream, the Little Coal River. Fed up with this massive threat to the land and the residents around Blair, the West Virginia Conservancy and alarmed residents sued to stop Arco’s projected new mine. In 1998, the court found that the removal of the mountaintop ”would cause significant irreversible damage” and ordered the regulatory agencies to evaluate the extent of the damage and to propose measures to reduce it. Earlier last year--eight years after the court’s order--, the Army Corps of Engineers issued an environmental impact statement, calling for “mitigation” of the anticipated damage and a reduction of the mine’s area from 3,000 to 2,278 acres. The Corps did not even mention the probability that seven miles of the valley’s stream might be buried under the mine’s debris. Now angry area residents are in the process of formulating their objections to the Corps’ impact statement, before final permits in March allow ARCO to start its dredging and stream-filling activities. The plaintiffs’ brief will certainly be citing the federal Clean Water Act that allows dredging and filling only when causing minimal environmental damage, “individually and cumulatively.” According to the Conservancy’s Highland Voice, “from 1992 through 2002, mountaintop removal mining and associated valley fills in Appalachia destroyed over 1,200 miles of streams and nearly 400,000 acres of forests (an area about ten times the District of Columbia).” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service described the environmental impact of coal mining on Appalachia’s aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems as “unmitigatable” and “unprecedented.” Amazingly, in its impact assessment, the Corps ignored most of the residents’ concerns: the danger of ground movements and air pollution caused by the blasting, potential flooding in the valley, the disruptions of daily life by the blasting noise, increased traffic from coal trucks, the destruction of the area’s scenic beauty and wild life, and, most of all, the severe loss of real property values. Opponents of more strip mining suggested that the time had come to produce electric energy from wind farms. When, however, such a project was proposed in West Virginia’s Greenbriar County, a residents’ organization, called Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy, opposed wind farms as adamantly as strip mines. Critics pointed out that windmills would destroy the area’s scenic attraction, endanger the bird population, and reduce property values. Nevertheless, the permanent environmental and social cost of big strip mines makes the damage caused by wind farming seem small. Spokespersons for coal companies and wind farms callously suggested that residents who do not appreciate the economic progress brought by their industries ought to move elsewhere. Yet, whether the victims of the energy industry’s expansion absorb their losses quietly or seek redress of their grievances from government agencies or courts, rarely, if ever, do they get adequately compensated for all the tangible and intangible losses they suffer. Just like the robber barons of America’s first industrial revolution, today’s coal, petroleum, and wind energy industries continue to profit immensely at the expense of thousands of individuals, as well as American society at large.

Wolf D. Fuhrig

Home

01-28-07

Costly Coal