Sherry Chandler » “Kentucky’s Undeground Economy”
“Kentucky’s Undeground Economy”
Bobbie Ann Mason in the NYTimes:
WHEN you fly over the Appalachians of eastern Kentucky, you can see the gray scars on the mountains, pockmarks reaching far to the north and east that are the results of a kind of strip-mining called mountaintop removal. Most Kentuckians never see that part of the state because it is so isolated, and most people across the nation (which burns the premium coal from these mountains) don’t know how costly their cheap electricity really is. It could break your heart to know.
It takes just a dozen guys with giant D-9 bulldozers about a year to wreck a mountain. They dynamite it, then shove the shattered vegetation and topsoil (called spoil or overburden) down into the valleys, followed by chunks of bedrock.
Everything in this horrific pile dies. Even the streams are buried. Every rain is a flood. Slurry ponds spill black sludge. People living near mine sites hear the cacophony of dynamite, dozers and coal trucks 24-7. Their houses flood and crack. Their children come home from school sick, covered with coal dust. The well water is black.
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5 Comments
1. Terry replies at 5th February 2006, 1:25 pm :
I noticed this first about 10 years ago, driving from Pikesville to Wise, VA on a research trip. Shortly out of Pikesville was a big sign telling me to turn off my cell phone because it was a blasting area. The scars in the landscape was heart-breaking.
I did notice how good the roads were, far better than Washington. When I asked my friend in Wise about it, she told me that it wasn’t for travelers; it was for the coal companies. They wanted to be able to transport their product quickly and efficiently.
2. sherry replies at 5th February 2006, 2:49 pm :
Much is being made now of technology for the clean use of coal, and it’s a wonderful development.
Unfortunately, there is no clean way to get the coal in the first place.
I hope Mason is right that people would be/will be broken-hearted to find out what cheap electricity costs the coal-mining regions. Mountaintop removal isn’t as dramatic as mine explosions, but it is just as deadly, if not moreso.
3. Wanda D. Campbell replies at 5th February 2006, 3:29 pm :
It DOES break my heart everytime I drive from Columbia to Pikeville to visit friends and relatives. I see those ugly scars on this continent’s oldest mountain chain and I think of the words to Denver’s, “Country Roads” and wonder if he would weep if he saw the country roads now. And I think of a quote from C.S. Lewis and I feel a horrid knot in my chest. Lewis is so well-known for The Chronicles of Narnia, a sci fi trilogy and many works of Chirstian aplogetics. But it is the quote that he is little known for which rings so true to my own heart. He once said, “Exploitation is the greatest sin on earth.” Nearly every act against nature and man can be traced to the desire for the select few to become more powerful. And surely, taking coal from the land is a sin against nature if ever anything was. Lewis also said he prayed that we never discovered life on another planet because surely cooperate America would find a way to exploit it. I doubt they’ll ever make a movie about his political beliefs, but I think he really had a truth there. Another famous and often misunderstood, most definitely misquoted man once said, “The love [desire to acquire] of money [prestige, power, acclaim] is the root of all evil.” More aptly stated, “Exploitation is the greatest evil on earth.” It has no regard for life or nature or beauty. So, this is my soapbox, as well and I support ANY action to protect the Appalachian Mountains.
Darlene
4. Charlie replies at 6th February 2006, 8:46 am :
Strip mining in eastern KY began in earnest in the late 1970’s as a result of the oil embargo. There was a coal boom of almost epic proportions in the mountains and foothills of eastern KY. Strip mining was a comparatively cheap way to get into coal mining, and many ventures resulted in considerable riches for their owners and financiers.
At one point it was said that four, that’s right, four, billion dollars worth of coal was taken out of Martin County KY in a span of two years. Martin was one of the poorest counties in KY. It had no four-lane road, no railroad; no water or sewer system in the entire county before or after this glut of its natural resource. There was terrible carnage on its narrow roads from coal trucks.
But guess what? People who never had decent jobs before could work in the strip mines and make good money.
I’m not sure just when mountain top removal began, but they fought it hard in West Virginia, with one courageous judge there halting it for a while. I don’t know much about what happened after that.
During the coal boom of the late seventies, so ubiquitous was the lust for coal riches, that even people I worked with at the mill were leaving their jobs and getting into the mad scramble.
Greenup County, where I live, is bisected by the Little Sandy river. We live on the western side. I remember how happy I was when one of my fellow mill workers who was leasing coal rights in the county told me there was no coal west of the Little Sandy.
Charlie
5. Sherry Chandler » S&hellip replies at 6th February 2006, 9:40 am :
[...] Great Comments Filed under: History and Politics and Activism at 9:40 am About Kentucky’s Underground Riches. I recommend that you take a look at thesse thoughts from people much more e [...]
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