On Trial: Peabody Energy's Bankrupt Climate Change Denial

If you’ve scanned the headlines for Peabody Energy, in the last few months, the story is that one of the largest companies comprising King Coal is now going through bankruptcy. But there is a curious development that I came close to overlooking, as it seems that the U.S. press is concentrating more on Paul Ryan and Donald Trump than it is on some of the legal and civil actions around climate change.

            In something of a Scopes Monkey Trial for the 21^st century, in which truth and science are put on trial against big money and anti-science, science and truth have won. The case was to determine if the state of Minnesota could continue to use its “social cost of carbon,” which is set quite low, or adopt the higher federal cost estimates.

            Peabody Energy was involved in the case because the social cost of carbon, an estimate of the costs to society because of the damage of carbon pollution, affects their bottom line.

            Peabody Energy relied on the tactics that are useful to sway portions of public opinion. But as this case showed, their reliance on obfuscation, setting unrealistic requirements of proof, and cherry picking data, falls apart under facile scrutiny.

            Peabody has just been in some hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission for not fully disclosing to their shareholders the risks that climate change poses to their business.
            We know that Peabody faces financial bankruptcy. With the coal giant are we seeing intellectual and moral bankruptcy as well?

Keeping West Virginia's Children Ignorant About Climate Change

Once again West Virginia Board of Education is trying to weaken the science standards when it comes to global warming.

This started in December of last year, when board member Wade Linger, who has said that, “[w]e need to look at all the theories about [climate change] rather than just the human changes in greenhouse gases,” and that he doesn’t believe that global warming is a “foregone conclusion,” had language inserted in the state’s science standards that portrayed climate change as something that is doubtful and debatable. His suggestion, that “and fall” followed the word “rise” in the sixth grade science standard, was adopted. Other changes included the following:

Original ninth grade science requirement: “Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.”

Adopted version: “Analyze geoscience data and the predictions made by computer climate models to assess their creditability [sic] for predicting future impacts on the Earth System.”

Original high school elective Environmental Science requirement: “Debate climate changes as it [sic] relates to greenhouse gases, human changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, and relevant laws and treaties.”

Adopted version: “Debate climate changes as it relates to natural forces such as Milankovitch cycles, greenhouse gases, human changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, and relevant laws and treaties.”

Other Board of Education members also expressed views that were skeptical about the reality of global warming. After the Charleston Gazette reported on the adopted changes, however, scientists, West Virginia residents, and educational and environmental activists pressured the Board of Education to correct the standards to be more in line with the accepted science on the subject. Linger’s changes to the standards were withdrawn. That was back in January.

            While not a word-for-word revamp of his original science standards changes, Linger’s latest move is very similar to the ones he proposed last December. We will see what sort of backlash this latest move generates.

            Members of the West Virginia Board of Education might simply be avid listeners to Rush Limbaugh and other AM radio folks who deny global warming. Or these changes to the curricula might be due to pressure from King Coal. The coal industry already has a big influence on the curricula of eastern Kentucky schools with their Coal Energy and Resource (CEDAR) program. This video below gives an idea of what CEDAR is all about. Watch it and try to tell me it is not indoctrination:

Those tons and tons of coal that are mined in Appalachia turn into tons and tons of CO2 when they are burned in power plants and factories. The coal industry knows this. They know that children who fully grasp this connection will not likely be supporters of their industry when they grow up. So it’s best to keep them in the dark on what the science says about coal and a warming world.

NASA Images Reveal Destruction of Mountaintop Removal

This page from NASA’s Earth Observatory shows the growth of the Hobet mine, one of the largest mountaintop removal mines in Appalachia, from 1984 through 2013. If you're in a good mood and don't want to spoil it, please don't click on the link! It's pretty depressing. Otherwise on the Earth Observatory page you can see the footprint of the mine grow across the landscape. Remember, this is only one mine.

The Hobet Mine in 1984, dwarfing the towns of Danville and Madison, West Virginia.
In the next 20 years it gets way worse. photo: NASA

The Waters - and the People - of West Virginia Are Unsafe Again

This is one of those bits of news that sends my cynicism meter into the stratosphere. On Monday, the West Virginia House Judiciary Committee passed, by a 13 to 12 vote, SB 423. This bill will undo the chemical tank safety legislation that was passed last year after a coal-cleaning chemical from a tank owned by Freedom Industries spilled into the Elk River and poisoned the drinking water for 300,000 West Virginians, some of whom had to rely on bottled water for weeks. Schools were closed, and many businesses, such as restaurants, lost business.

The bill would give West Virginia’s Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management more power to withhold from the public information on the chemical tanks in the state. I don’t know about you, but that certainly makes me feel more secure. The bill also reduces the number of tanks administered by last year’s safety law from around 50,000 down to about 12,000. State mandated inspections will be cut back under this bill, and information concerning hazardous materials stored near drinking water intakes will be blocked from the public. The bill has already passed the West Virginia Senate. Governor Tomblin’s signature is almost a certainty.

Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette has more detail of the story here, and you can read his Coal Tattoo blog about it here.

How is a fiasco like this possible? Is it that the folks in West Virginia are too distracted by driving their kids to school and getting themselves off to work that they don’t have the time or energy to care about the water they drink? Or have all those chemicals in the water affected the memories of all those people who had to go to the store just so they could have water to drink last year?

Bryan T. McNiel, in his book Combating Mountaintop Removal: New Directions in the Fight Against Big Coal, says that West Virginia best resembles a third world country, one in which an outside industry extracts resources and, in order to do so, has all of the state, the political leaders and the populace, under its thumb. Even if you were to ignore the endemic poverty of West Virginia, the poorest state of the union, or the manner in which the coal industry keeps its message in the minds of the folks of the Mountain State—going so far as to inject itself into the classrooms of Appalachian schoolchildren—this latest turn by the elected officials in Charleston would be proof enough that McNiel is correct in thinking of West Virginia as the banana republic that rests somewhere between Pennsylvania and Kentucky.

I guess that it will be impossible to find out how this came about. Did this legislation come about only recently, the result of renewed backroom deals between politicians and the coal companies? Or had the fix been in from the start? That SB 373 was only a sham, a dog and pony show of politicians doing what’s right for the state of West Virginia and the people who live there, while they knew full well that months hence, possibly even a year later, that SB 373 would die and the laws to protect the water would be as flimsy as a rusted 50-year-old storage tank held together by duct tape and earnestly crossed fingers.

            I don’t think we’ll find out either way. Oh, and by the way, we still do not know about the toxicity of 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol, the licorice smelling substance that fouled the waters of the Elk River.

Troubled waters again for West Virginia

Coal Miners Rally in Pittsburgh

Two days of public hearings began today in Pittsburgh on proposed rules by the EPA that would set more stringent standards for the emissions of CO2 from coal-burning power plants. These rules are being proposed to stave off global warming. Similar hearings were held earlier this week in Atlanta, Denver, and Washington, D.C., but these hearings in Pittsburgh, right in the middle of the coal-rich Appalachians, attracted a great deal of attention from the coal industry and its political supporters.

            Yesterday the coal industry held a rally. Called an affordable electricity and energy jobs rally, the gathering included Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, and labor leaders. The rally was attended by hundreds of West Virginia coal miners.

            Tomblin, an unabashed supporter of the coal industry, spoke at the rally in support of the coal companies and against the proposed new power plant rules. Now, before going much further, let me give credit to Tomblin, who, as he spoke at this rally, did not deny the connection between burning coal and warming up the world. He did, however, have a pretty harsh critique of the Environmental Protection Agency. He described the proposed carbon rules as “unreasonable restrictions” and “ideological policies” that would eliminate jobs in the coal region. He also used a race-to-the-bottom argument that reducing the emissions of U.S. power plants would raise electricity rates and send manufacturers overseas to countries that don’t govern their power production so well or don’t govern it at all.

            I don’t claim that Tomblin or other politicians’ concern for jobs is insincere. It is nonetheless interesting to me how well their concern for the employment of their constituents dovetails with the concerns of industry.  Back when the auto industry and the steel industry decided to move operations overseas and allow America’s industrial belt to crumble and turn into the rust belt I don’t recall a great number of politicians pontificating on the concern to keep Detroiters or Pittsburghers in their jobs.

 

When did politicians hold rallies to keep jobs in Detroit and Pittsburgh?

As I said above, I give credit to Tomblin for not denying climate change. And I guess in a weird way I have to give credit to Nick Casey, the former chairman of West Virginia’s Democratic Party who is now running for Congress. He doesn’t deny climate change either. But in a meeting with some of West Virginia’s largest lobbying groups he said that global warming is not a problem to be addressed by West Virginians. “It’s not our problem,” he said, because global warming is an international issue.

            Excuse me, I hope the quality of my writing doesn’t suffer as I keep pounding at the keyboard, but right now my head is spinning. Nick Casey is saying global warming is not a West Virginia problem because the problem belongs to the whole world. Well, well, well. I’m not even sure where to start with this. It is true that as the seas rise and the oceans grow more and more acidic West Virginia will not be immediately affected. The amount of warming that the Mountain State experiences may not be as great as what is expected in other places. So Casey could be right that global warming may not be a big problem for West Virginia. But, as a state with a lot of coal and natural gas, it is, undeniably, their responsibility.

            And my head still spins.

            

Testing the Waters in West Virginia

Well, well, well. Maybe I should figure better late than never, but that is small consolation when your drinking water has smelled like licorice and made you nauseated and gave you headaches for weeks.

            The National Institute of Health, specifically the National Toxicology Program at the NIH, announced that they will conduct extensive tests on the health effects of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, the coal cleaning substance that spilled into the Elk River in West Virginia back in January and poisoned the drinking water for 300,000 residents.

            I’m glad that the NIH is doing its job, but it is unsettling that this announcement comes six months after the Elk River spill. It’s actually unsettling that MCHM, which has been used by the coal industry for decades, hadn’t been tested long ago.

The glass is half full and long overdue to be tested for toxicity

Three Months On West Virginia Still Suffers From Troubled Waters

Three months on some West Virginians still aren't drinking the water.

Sorry to have dropped the ball on this blog for a while. There has been plenty to write about, but I’ve been tied up with a few things lately. I promise to get back to a more regular schedule with my posts here.

            The story that I’ve been following a great deal lately is the toxic spill in West Virginia’s Elk River that occurred in January of this year. Though the spill happened almost exactly three months ago, apparently there are still folks who are staying away from their tap water, and some folks are complaining that the telltale licorice smell still lingers in the water coming from their taps. The levels of the 4-methylcyclohexane methanol have dropped in the drinking water. The highest level of the chemical in water tested in a ten-home pilot project was found to be 6.1 parts per billion, much lower than the Center For Disease Control’s somewhat arbitrary threshold of 1000 parts per billion.

            It seems as though some members of the national press are keeping an eye on the water problems in the Kanawha Valley. I heard this story on Here and Now. Interviewed for the story is Rahul Gupta. The Kanawha-Charleston health director said that there may now be evidence pointing to long-standing low levels of MCHM being present in the drinking water of the Kanawha Valley. As he said, there is no research on what this chemical might do to people who are exposed to small amounts of it over long periods of time.

And the spill made the pages of the New Yorker. Evan Osnos, who years ago worked as a photojournalist in Clarksburg, West Virginia, my hometown, delves into the history of the coal companies and the grip that they have on the politics of the Mountain State. In his piece Osnos suggests that the rise of the GOP in West Virginia, a very traditional Democratic stronghold, is not a good trend. Although the anti-environmental rhetoric of the GOP and that party’s willingness to slash and burn environmental and health regulations would seem to support what he has to say, I think things are bad in my home state no matter which party occupies the state house or the governor’s mansion. The lack of regulatory control over the coal companies and the chemical industries goes back through the administrations of governors Joe Manchin and Jay Rockefeller, both Democrats.

            Democrats and Republicans both bear some of the blame for the state of affairs in West Virginia; the same can be said of the electorate that sends these politicians into office. Ultimately, however, the coal companies and the chemical industry in West Virginia are responsible for the polluted waters and sickened people. From the time Appalachian children attend grammar school, where the coal industry has developed and, with the blessing of the educational establishment, inserted into Appalachian schools’ curricula to indoctrinate students and turn them into coal industry loving adults, through the industry’s campaign against the president and environmental regulation in the guise of fighting Obama’s “war on coal,” King Coal and the chemical companies influence enough of the electorate to get coal-friendly politicians into office. Their influence is not total. Recent polling indicates that mountaintop removal remains unpopular in West Virginia. Even still, you don’t have to convince every voter, just enough to make the difference to get your preferred candidate into office. And once in office, no matter what a state senator or governor may believe personally, they are barraged with the money and lobbying of the industries that control West Virginia.

            Without footage of floodwaters or images of flattened houses, most of the national press moved on from the story of West Virginians and their water problems. But Osnos quotes West Virginia Senate Majority Leader John Unger pointing out why this toxic spill deserves the attention of the rest of the country, “Martin Luther King said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Why should anybody care about what goes on in West Virginia? Because it’s the canary in the mineshaft. If you ignore it in West Virginia, it’s coming, it’s going to continue to build, and the issue is: Should our country have the debate about our rights to the very basic infrastructure that sustains us? Or should we continue to ignore it?”

Supreme Court Denies Arch Coal More Mountaintop Removal at Spruce Mine No. 1

The Supreme Court did a good thing today, rejecting an appeal from Arch Coal to review a decision by the U.S. District Court of Appeals. The original ruling of the District Court, which goes back to April of last year, found that the EPA could withdraw a previously approved Clean Water Act permit. The permits are granted to allow for pollution of waters and the filling in of streams. Coal companies need these permits to operate their mountaintop removal mines and dump the waste rock and soil or “overburden” from the mines into adjacent valleys and streams.

            Arch coal had sought the permit, and received the permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, to expand its Spruce Mine No. 1 in West Virginia. The Spruce Mine is already huge; with the permit it would have made it the largest such mine in the Mountain State. The EPA had rescinded the permit retroactively, after the Corps had granted the permit.

            Arch Coal said that wasn’t kosher. The District Court said it was. And now the Supreme Court has said that decision stands. We are not totally out of the woods on this, but this is a good turn of events.

The Educational Director Who Could

This is a great story. Bill Bigelow taught high school social studies in Portland, Oregon for almost 30 years before becoming the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools and the co-director of the Zinn Educational Project. In 2011, while he was developing academic activities on coal and climate change for Rethinking Schools magazine, he came across The United States of Energy, a pro-coal propaganda “curriculum” for fourth grade students that had been sponsored by the coal industry and published by Scholastic, the well-known education publisher.

            Bigelow wrote a critique of The United States of Energy and teamed up with another prominent educator. Before long the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace were on board with the effort.

            As a result, Scholastic severed ties with the coal industry and stopped distribution of The United States of Energy. Scholastic also began a review of its “In School Marketing” program.

            I love stories like this, when one individual brings about a needed change by simply speaking the truth. Now if Bigelow and Rethinking Schools could just get the coal companies out of the schoolrooms of Appalachia, where they still run the show.

Duke Energy Wants to Have Its Cake and Eat It, Too. And They Want to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too, Too

Sorry about that coal ash spill thingy. You folks don't mind paying for it now, do you?

This news item has my head spinning. In a move that goes way beyond having unmitigated gall, Duke Energy, whose spill of between 50,000 and 82,000 tons of coal ash fouled North Carolina’s Dan River last month, now says that the power company’s customers should pick up the bill to clean up the company’s dozens of coal ash storage sites.

            Lynn Good, Duke Energy’s CEO, told the Charlotte Observer that since rate payers had enjoyed the electricity the company provided for generations they are the ones who should pay for the cleanup of the byproduct of producing that electricity.

            OK, so I sell you a guitar. Years later, due to my bad business practices, I incur debts. I then tell you that since you bought a guitar and benefited from my bad business practices, you should pay my bills. That is exactly what Duke is trying to do here. They want to have their cake and eat it, too. And they want to have your cake and eat it too, too.

Hat tip to my friend Amy for this story.

West Virginia Leaders in Washington Sing the Same Old Tune

West Virginia leaders sing the same old tune

It seems that in Washington things remain quite the same,

with the law makers from West Virginia continuing to toe the line for King
Coal. Once again, this is from Ken Ward, who knows way more about West Virginia
and coal than I ever could, and his Coal Tattoo blog.

West Virginia Water Bill in Final Sausage-Making Phase

Fat possums: Water bill coming down to the wire

Ken Ward’s Coal Tattoo blog on the ins and outs of the West

Virginia legislation crafted in response to January’s chemical spill in the Elk
River. Lots of last minute sausage making moves going on, and Ken sums things
up really well.

Good News About Coal And Coal Mining? Can You Believe It?

Wow. That’s all I can think right now. Wow. I just got this news story in from Reuters. In a consent decree reached with the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency Alpha Natural Resources and its subsidiaries have agreed to spend about $200 million to install and operate wastewater treatment systems and begin upgrades to current systems to reduce toxic runoff from their mines that pollute streams throughout Appalachia.

            Alpha will also pay $27.5 million in civil penalties for thousands of permit violations. This is the largest penalty in history for violations of Section 402 of the Clean Water Act.

            In other good news, Spaniards are showing some good sense in banning mountaintop removal from the beautiful mountains of their northern region.

            Is today Christmas? It sort of feels that way to me right now.

UPDATE: For more on the Alpha story check out Ken Ward's blog here. 

Snoopy and Charlie Brown are happy for the mountains and the folks who live there.

Even the Dead Can't Rest in Peace When There Are Mountaintop Mines

The struggles of a family to visit and maintain the integrity of their loved ones’ graves continue in West Virginia. The story was big news last year, and the family has been struggling with the coal company since 2008.

The "Graveyard in the Sky" photo Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Maria Gunnoe/Associated Press

 As you can see from the photo, the mountaintop removal mining operation completely encircles what remains of a community’s graveyard. Members of the Jarrell family, as well as environmental activists, claim that Alpha Natural Resources and its subsidiary Independence Coal Company, which operates the mountaintop removal coal mine, violated state law and an agreement reached between the coal company and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to preserve access to the graves and keep mining at least 100 feet away from the graveyard. The plaintiffs also claim that mining has toppled gravestones in the cemetery.

            The family members can visit their loved ones’ graves, but before they are allowed to do so they must first give notice to Alpha 10 days ahead of their planned visit, endure a 30-minute safety course, surrender their cell phones and cameras to the coal company, and be escorted by Alpha employees up a dirt road that is only accessible by four-wheel drive.

            The family claims that these requirements of the coal company in essence deprives them of their ability to visit the graves of their loved ones and to bury their dead at this cemetery in the future. Lest you think that this is a unique situation, there are plenty more “mine bound” cemeteries in the Mountain State.

            Can you imagine visiting your parents' or grandparents' graves under such conditions? And what’s this thing about cell phones and cameras?

Maybe West Virginians Really Aren't Happy With King Coal After All

I’ve been blogging about my apparent dismay that there doesn’t seem to be that much of a sense of outrage in West Virginia when those folks have been denied basic drinking water for weeks on end. Well, this recent poll by the Sierra Club may indicate that, though they are not carrying signs and marching down the street, West Virginians are not happy with the situation in their state.

            Across party lines in this poll of 504 West Virginia voters a great majority favor more regulation of the coal industry, with an overwhelming 68 percent, including 57 percent of Republican respondents, saying that greater regulation would have prevented last month’s toxic spill in the Elk River that poisoned the drinking water for 300,000 West Virginia residents. Another 65 percent of respondents thought that the coal industry bore “some” or “a lot” of responsibility for air and water pollution in their state. And 61 percent believe that coal companies have too much influence in their state’s politics.

            These people are voters. Let’s hope that their beliefs and convictions accompany them to the polls in the next election.

When the river looks like this, maybe it's time to call in the regulators.

D.C. Court Throws Out Bush Gutting of Mountaintop Mining 100-Foot Buffer Zone Protection

This is some good news. The eleventh hour rewrite that the George W. Bush administration gave to the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act that stripped the 100-foot buffer zone for streams and rivers has been struck down by the Washington, D.C. district court.

            The Obama administration has been unsuccessful in its efforts to reinstate the buffer zone. So this ruling is some progress. The court, in its ruling in this case that was filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center, said that in doing away with the buffer zone, the Office of Surface Mining did not adequately consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service as to the effects the rule change would have on endangered species. The court ruling is here.

            The buffer zone rule applies to the disposal of what is called ‘overburden,” the soil and rock that lays atop the seams of Appalachian coal. In mountaintop mining this overburden is blasted away to get at the coal underneath. As the rock and soil are removed from the mountain, it is dumped into adjacent valleys. The buffer zone protects the streams in these valley from being covered over with the overburden.

Just 100 feet to protect the stream, that's all.

This ruling give us hope, but mountaintop mining will continue. And in many ways the 100-foot rule had been merely symbolic, due to the history of its lax enforcement. Even with the buffer zone regulation, 2,400 miles of Appalachian streams, the length of the Mississippi River, have been destroyed by mountaintop removal. And since the ruling, some Washington lawmakers are voicing support for H.R. 2824, the Preventing Government Waste and Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America Act, which would turn the 100-foot buffer zone regulation over to state regulators, essentially gutting the federal law.

            Hat tip to Andy for notifying me of this news.

United For Coal? What About United For People and Safe Drinking Water?

Just one to three more weeks, and we might know if the water in southern West Virginia is safe to drink. Not one to three weeks till it’s safe to drink, but one to three weeks before we can determine if it MIGHT be safe.

            The poisonous spill of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol in the Elk River occurred on the ninth of January, over six weeks ago, and we might have to wait another three weeks before we can determine any amount of safety of this water. In the meantime we’ve had school closings and businesses straining to stay open.

            Back in 2012 an organization called United For Coal got turnout in the hundreds, perhaps thousands to “take a stand for coal” against an imaginary “war on coal” that was to be blamed on Barack Obama as he ran for reelection. Where are those people now? Do they not have any concern for themselves, their neighbors, and their children as they are denied basic drinkable water? Those folks lined highways carrying signs and wearing bright yellow T-shirts. A United For Coal website claims that our government, is committing, “Regional Genocide” in relation to Appalachia and the coal region. The site goes on to say, “They have summarily executed the entire coal industry thru (sic) overreaching environmental regulation.”

Line up, wear T-shirts, and wave flags for coal and Mitt Romney while your water gets poisoned

I try to avoid similar over-the-top rhetoric—like using the word genocide when I’m not talking about historical situations in Rwanda and Nazi Germany—as the United For Coal site does. But think about it for a while, what comes closer to genocide than poisoning drinking water for 300,000 people? Where are these protesters? Where are their signs and T-shirts? If you’re going to line up along highways and freeways and wave to supporters as they drive by and honk their horns, what does it take to motivate you? A 100-foot stream buffer rule as part of surface mining regulations, or not being able to bath for weeks on end and having to pick up plastic containers of water down at the shopping mall?

Fourth Poisonous Spill in Appalachia This Year

So now there is a second toxic spill in North Carolina's Dan River from the decommissioned Duke Energy power plant. So how many toxic spills have gone into the waters of Appalachia this year? Four?

            And it’s only February.

Coal ash in the streams now a common sight in Appalachia?

The Winners and Losers in Appalachia

It looks like somebody at least is doing his job when it comes to the toxic spill in North Carolina. The United States Attorney’s Office in Raleigh, North Carolina issued grand jury subpoenas to Duke Energy, the company that owns and ran the retired power plant that spilled between 50,000 and 82,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River, and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

            The subpoenas are asking for emails, memos, and reports related to the spill that occurred nearly two weeks ago. The subpoenas also want information on the state of North Carolina’s oversight of Duke Energy’s 30 other coal ash dumps.

            It turns out that environmental groups had tried to force Duke to clear out leaky coal ash dumps, suing the energy company under terms of the Clean Water Act. In every case, the state of North Carolina blocked the lawsuits. Do you think that the subpoenas have anything to do with this?

            One of the most graphic and sickening pieces of journalism on mountaintop removal is published today over at businessinsider.com. Rightly, they identify this destruction as a product of addiction, our addiction to cheap coal. WARNING: these are graphic and disturbing images. You might think twice before clicking.

            The same website also examines the paradox that is mountaintop removal. Even while billions of tons of coal are being dug out of the mountains of Appalachia, coal jobs have sharply declined in the last couple of years. The article cites the booming of gas production, which is true in this case, as well as environmental regulation, which is false in this regard, as the causes of the downturn.  Quoted in the article is Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association. He says, “There's a gross inconsistency, in our view, of this administration's insistence that it wants to create high-wage jobs and more of them, and the reality that their policies are having on the employment marketplace.”

This is regulated, Mr. Popovich?

The canard of environmental regulation reducing coal jobs is risible. If you had the fortitude to click on the images of mountaintop mining, you can easily see that environmental regulation of this type of mining is nonexistent. As West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller recently told NPR, when it comes to coal and West Virginia, he says, “So the industries always win, the people always lose.”

From Ken Ward Writing in the Charleston Gazette: Hearing Provides Few Answers on Water Safety

Hearing provides few answers on water safety  - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports -

Ken Ward covered yesterday’s Congressional hearing on the toxic spill that poisoned the drinking water for 300,000 West Virginians last month. The link above takes you to his story. A month after the spill, no one, not a single official, would say that the water is now safe to drink.