Save the Appalachian Mountains

By Denise Winebrenner Edwards

PITTSBURGH - West Virginians are arguing in the courts, lobbying in the State Legislature, and petitioning neighbor to neighbor, hollow to hollow, to halt "mountaintop" mining.

As if strip mining had not reduced enough of the majestic Appalachian mountain chain to rubble, now coal operators are flatting an entire region, the area south of the state capital in Charleston.

In mountaintop mining, coal companies, most of which are subsidiaries of oil monopolies, blast off hill tops. Skyscraper size machines, some as high as 20 stories, move in and gouge out the coal reserves.

When the coal is exhausted, profits, company and machinery go on to next hill, next county, next state, leaving behind unemployed families living in a desert.

In a landmark decision expected March 5, Chief U.S. District Judge Charles Haden II will rule on a suit brought by the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy to stop Arch Coal from mountaintop mining 3100 acres near Blair, Logan County. The size, 3100 acres, of the Arch Coal's proposed Pigeonroost Branch mine site is the largest in state history.

Since Feb. 3, Judge Haden has blocked state and federal permits for the mine, leading up to coal company lawyers and environmentalist's attorneys final arguments on February 26.

Seated next to Arch Coal Company lawyers at the defendant's table were attorneys from the Army Corps of Engineers and the West Virginia Division of Environmental Protection (DEP) who exempted Arch Coal from strip mining regulations.

Judge Haden, an avid bird watcher and fisherman, has toured the Pigeonroost Branch and 2 operating mountaintop strip jobs controlled by Arch Coal.

Arch Coal is no stranger to court rooms. On Feb. 10, they were in state court answering charges that the company dumped a wide variety coal mine production waste, including oil, cans, rags and other debris, at a mined out area near the proposed Pigeonroost mine site.

According to the West Virginia Office of Mining and Reclamation, coal companies are running 185 mountaintop removal mines in the state with 40 more in the pipeline.

Who pays for what is hidden in a convoluted company paper scam to dodge union organization, government environment regulations and taxes and resident action.

Arch Coal operates the Pigeonroost mine under Hobet Mining, which in turn owns a subsidiary, Dal-Tex. Dal-Tex is the official name of the mining site.

Arch Coal is multibillion dollar operation. Based in St. Louis, it is the second largest coal operator in the United States. Through Sept. 30, 1998, the company took in $1 billion, 90 million on 54.4 million tons of coal shipped. They own mines in eight states powering 6 percent of all electricity produced in the country. The company controls 3.8 billion tons of all U.S. recoverable coal reserves, 85 percent of which is low sulfur coal, falling within EPA emission standards.

In October, 1998, Arch Coal expanded its Powder Basin, Wyo. operations by an estimated 412 million tons of coal under 3,546 acres of land. The acquisition enlarges Arch Coal's Black Thunder mine to the second largest mine in the United States. The largest is the Bailey deep mine complex owned by Consolidation Coal in Greene County, Pennsylvania. Both mines, one underground and one strip, are non-union.

In a letter announcing the new Wyoming land grab to stockholders, Arch Coal President Steven F. Leer predicted no problems in obtaining state and federal permits for West Virginia Pigeonroost Branch project.

Meanwhile, thousands of West Virginia workers faced off against coal operators, including Arch Coal, testifying at federal and state hearings protesting mountaintop mining.

The United Methodists, Episcopalians, Evangelical Lutherans, Presbyterian Church USA, Commission on Religion in Appalachia and the Catholic Committee of Appalachia have all passed resolutions demanding and end to mountaintop mining.

Environmental groups, students, community organizations and some unions have joined in the fight. They have presented their statements to state and federal officials at mass meetings around the state.

Over 400 area residents turned out in rural Summersville, Nicholas County, W.Va. (pop. 2,900) going toe to toe with Arch Coal. Hundreds of Marshall University and University of Charleston students participated in hearings which were also scheduled for Logan County.

Congressman Rahall is developing new standards for strip mining and the state legislature in considering new legislation to clamp down on mountaintop mining.

Blair resident and signature on the suit filed by the Highlands Conservancy, James Weekley described the special place land holds for West Virginians.

"Pigeonroost Spruce No. 1 mine in Blair's (the nearest town) permit is the biggest permit to be issued, consisting of 3100 acres," he wrote.

"My family, the Burgesses and the Weekleys, have been in this hollow for generations, all the way since the 1700s. My father, William Weekley taught in Logan County and worked in the coal mines since 1946.

Now this history is going to be destroyed because of mountaintop removal. Arch wants me and also my mother to sell our land, homes and - the bottom line - our lives to them. Well, I am not going to. I am going to stay here and fight this !"

Dianne Bady, director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition added not only the coalition's weight, but pointed out that Marshall University students exposed the fact that Arch never even considered an alternative mining method to mountaintop bombing.

Representatives of Arch Coal sit on Board on Marshall University. Plus, Bady wrote, the West Virginia Bureau of Employment Programs reported that mountaintop mining accounts for less than 0.5, not a full 1 percent, of all state jobs - a tiny fraction. "As highly mechanized mountaintop removal has grown in West Virginia, the number of mining jobs has plummeted," she said.

Answering the coal operator's million dollar add campaign, Bady replied that "claims that mountains aren't really being leveled .... is nonsense. When mountains are lowered by 500 feel and the adjacent narrow valleys are filled in with those former mountaintops, what's left is no longer teeming-with-life landscape of steep mountains and dramatic hollows. What's left is flat or rolling ground with no real topsoil to support natural forest growth."

Coal operators say that only a tiny portion of the state will be leveled. Bady fires back: "To someone who lives below what is proposed to be a 10 square mile area of demolished mountains and buried streams, it hardly matters that much of the state doesn't yet have mountaintop removal mines."