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?

Mountaintop Removal Gives West Virginians a Graveyard In the Sky

This is apparently big news. It made the pages of the Washington Post, so to me that counts as big news. Anyway, the news is that a group of West Virginians is suing one of the large coal companies there to stem further damage to a cemetery that is surrounded by a mountaintop removal coal mine. The photograph below shows the bit of land on which the graveyard is surrounded by the devastation of the mine site.

 

For West Virginians their final resting place among the trees in the middle of a mountaintop removal mine photo Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Maria Gunnoe/Associated Press

The group says that Alpha Natural Resources and its subsidiary, Independence Coal Company, have violated state law and an agreement that the coal company has with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to preserve access and keep mining at least 100 feet away from the graveyard.

            The plaintiffs claim that the access road to the gravesites has become almost impassable except for heavy-duty, four-wheel drive vehicles. Besides the degradation to the access roads, visitors to the graveyard have to request access to the site from the mine’s safety coordinator, show ID, and provide their Social Security numbers.

            The plaintiffs also say that the mine has damaged the graves. Maria Gunnoe, who has long fought mountaintop mining and has received the University of Michigan’s Raoul Wallenberg Medal in recognition for her work in environmental and social justice, says that blasting from the mine has shaken headstones loose and has caused some of the gravestones to crack, tilt, or sink. Some have been damaged by falling trees.

            Alpha denies that they are not in compliance with their agreements or the law. They say that their coal mining has not damaged the graves.

            It is ironic, at least to me, that this lawsuit concerns the effects of a mountaintop mine on the dead. This mine, the Twilight Surface Mine, basically swallowed up and destroyed the small Boone County community of Lindytown, the community that had the gravesite. A little over two years ago Massey Energy, the original owner of the mine, bought up the small town, sending almost all of its residents away from the community that many had known for generations.

            I can understand the plight of the plaintiffs in this case, their distress over the treatment of their relatives’ and ancestors’ resting places. But a greater crime seems to be how the living have been treated in this area and how their lives have been disrupted by the mountaintop coal mines. Equally distressing is the amount of power that a mine company can have. Besides blowing up the mountains of Appalachia, a single coal company can buy up an entire town, just because the town gets in the way of its plans for a mine. To me it is wrong that this country could allow such a triumph of capitalism over community.

            Another thing that is wrong is what the Washington Post considers newsworthy. I don’t deny that this is a newsworthy story. But it is one of the few stories concerning mountaintop mining that the Post has run. Searching through the online newspaper using the term “mountaintop removal” brings up a number of stories, all of which are on politics (here and here), obituaries (here and here), or arts (here). I don’t discount the merit of these news stories, but the real story in Appalachia, the real headline grabber that calls out, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” is that the mountains of Appalachia are falling because of the coal deep inside them.