Appalachians: Should They Be Treated Like Americans?

The Sierra Club, along with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, are suing to have the approvals for mountaintop removal mines in Kentucky and West Virginia reversed

            The groups contend that the Army Corps of Engineers did not consider the detrimental effects the mining would have on the health of the local residents. By law health concerns are part of the permitting process.

            There is growing evidence that there is nothing healthy about living near a mountaintop mine. Health investigations have found learning disabilities, kidney stones, tooth loss, diarrhea, rash, and some forms of cancer in individuals living close to Mountaintop mines.[i] Mountaintop removal has also been associated with birth defects of the circulatory, respiratory, central nervous musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, and urogenital systems.[ii] And people who live around this destructive mining practice also experience extreme psychological stress.[iii]

            Considering that the people of Appalachia are our fellow Americans, how much of a stretch is it to think that they should be safeguarded by the same laws that keep the rest of us safe and healthy?

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[i] Holzman, David C. “Mountaintop Removal Mining.” Environmental Health Perspectives Vol. 119, Issue 11 November 1, 2011 electronic journal

[ii] Ahearn, Melissa M. et at. “The association between mountaintop mining and birth defects among live births in central Appalachia, 1996–2003.” Environmental Research Vol. 111 Issue 6. Aug 2011, p 838-846 electronic journal

[iii] Paige Cordial, Ruth Riding-Malon, and Hilary Lips. Ecopsychology. Vol.4, Issue 3, September 2012, 201-208. electronic journal

The Clean Water Act Turns 40: Yippee!

Those of you who read this blog with any regularity may tire of my cynicism. I don’t blame you. I

tire of it myself.

            Today, however, is a reason for celebration. The Clean Water Act is 40 years old today. While there is still work to be done and reason for concern, the change that this legislation brought about is striking. Today, because of the Nixon administration legislation, the number of Americans who have access to clean drinking water has risen from 79 percent in 1993 to 92 percent in 2008. More than 2000 bodies of water identified as impaired ten years ago now meet water quality standards.

The big thing, though, is that the Clean Water Act has us thinking differently now. Until the early seventies many of us thought that it was OK to use our waterways as open sewers. Industry dumped waste into streams and rivers without a thought to the consequences that lay downstream.

That is no longer the case today. As Martin Luther King, other civil rights leaders, and the civil rights legislation of the early sixties enabled us to vote for a presidential candidate because of the content of his character, not the color of his skin, the Clean Water Act now has us look at our waterways not as dumping grounds, but as ecosystems and parts of our communities to be preserved and enjoyed.

Benghazi and the Presidential Debate: But What About Lives Lost in This Country?

The violence in Benghazi that left four Americans dead last month, including ambassador Christopher Stevens, was brought up at the presidential debate last night. I did not watch the debate and think that what was said last night doesn’t really matter. I just heard about the debate from the news this morning and know that the Benghazi incident has entered the fog of politics.

            One thing I do know is that there have been hearings in the House, lead by GOP representative Darrell Issa into the matter. There is also an FBI investigation.

            Now I am not saying that this is a matter that should not be investigated. The government should ensure the safety of its staff overseas. But look at the hearings and investigation in the context of other lives lost.

            In 2010 the lives of 29 miners were lost in the Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia, due to an explosion. In their report on the disaster the Mine Health and Safety Administration excoriated Massey Energy, the owner of the mine, for their disregard of safety regulations and their emphasis of profit over safety. The report says in essence that the miners lost their lives because of the criminal activity of the mine owner.

            Though the families of the deceased miners pleaded with Congress for improved mine safety and stiffer penalties for mine safety violations, Washington lawmakers did nothing.

            There were also no Congressional hearings on the matter either.

            So Congress is holding hearings on the Benghazi attacks, which left four dead and held no hearings on a mine disaster that killed 29. Unlike Benghazi, which is in another country in a different continent on the other side of the world, the coal mine those miners died in is right here in this country.

            Does this make any sense at all?

I Stand With United For Coal: I Just Think the Blame Lies Elsewhere

This Saturday—if all goes according to plan, and so far it looks like things will go according to plan—residents of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio will gather along highways in a “United for Coal” demonstration. Sometimes called a “prayer line” and obliquely compared to the “Hands Across America” of 25 years ago, the demonstration is intended to call attention to the plight of miners, their families, and their communities, as more miners are laid off with little hope of ever getting their jobs back.

            The plight of these folks is real. Mines have been shuttered throughout the region. Just last month Alpha Natural Resources shut down eight mines in Appalachia, laying off 800 workers.

The organizers of this event say that the blame for their situation sits squarely with the Federal government and its environmental regulations. The United for Coal website says:

Our government has decided to commit "Regional Genocide" against our people. They have summarily executed the entire coal industry thru overreaching environmental regulation. This was done with no consideration of the human cost whatsoever. No replacement industry was offered, no migration path was planned. An entire society stamped out by rule of law with nary a thought about its citizens. Our "American Dream" has become a nightmare, and we are but the first domino to fall in an economic chain of events that will end the dreams of us all. Who can we turn to? Who will save us??

Now, inflammatory rhetoric aside, this narrative, that environmental rules are forcing the closure of power plants, which thus reduces the demand for the coal that is mined in the hills of Appalachia, is being reinforced by the press. That line of thought is conveyed in the headline of this Chicago Tribune story, published yesterday, “More US coal plants to retire due to green rules: study.”

            The newspaper story is based on a study by the international economic consulting firm The Brattle Group. But if you take a look at the study itself, the authors say that the retirement of the coal-fired power plants is due to lower prices for natural gas. The reduction of capacity is foreseen as being about 59,000 megawatts, going as high as 77,000 megawatts of capacity if strict environmental regulation is implemented. As The Brattle Group points out, however, the environmental regulations and deadlines for the coal plants are less restrictive than they had previously estimated. In the body of the Tribune story other factors affecting the closure of the power plants are mentionerd, including warmer than average weather. The headline is nonetheless misleading.

            Historically, the regulation for mining itself has been lax to nonexistent. In her groundbreaking expose of mountaintop removal mining for US New and World Report Penny Loeb said that the regulations of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, the department in charge of permitting mountaintop mining, “are outdated, its enforcement muscle is puny, and it is constantly reacting to problems rather than heading them off.”[i] Most fines are low, even for serious violations. The average fine is about $800 per incident. The maximum fine can be $5,000, but after protests by mine owners DEP assessment officers reduced nearly 80 percent of fines recommended by inspectors.[ii] And as illustrated by the disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine in 2010, mine owners continue to disregard regulations, with little action by Washington even in the wake of a large and headline grabbing disaster such as Upper Big Branch.

            Now, things are bad for the folks of Appalachia. You can read books about the Battle of Blair Mountain or watch the movie Matewan and get a glimpse of the hardscrabble life of the Appalachian miners and others as they fought for unionization in the early twentieth century. Fifty years ago, as he campaigned through Appalachia, John Kennedy was moved as he witnessed the poverty of the region, leading him to form the Appalachian Regional Commission, intended to raise the living standards of Appalachians. Lyndon Johnson followed through with this effort by signing the bipartisan Appalachian Regional Development Act.

            But any ameliorative efforts by the Johnson and Kennedy administrations have been erased by 30 years of mountaintop removal, which requires only a fraction of the miners employed by more traditional mining techniques, and the union busting by the coal companies, particularly Massey Energy. The folks at United For Coal are correct. They need help. That help will not come from the coal companies. They are showing no solidarity with the miners and their families with United for Coal. Washington needs to do something. Just as the auto industry bailouts kept people working in Ohio and Michigan, investments in infrastructure or green projects could keep paychecks coming into Appalachian’s wallets.

            I support the people who will stand along the highways of Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. In spirit I am United for Coal. I believe, however, that the dire condition of the miners and their communities lies with forces beyond their control: a warm winter that drove down the demand for all fuel, as well as natural gas whose price has plummeted. They are also at the mercy of an industry that has been indifferent if not hostile to their needs, mountaintop removal that destroys the land and ruins communities, and state governments that are often more beholden to the coal companies than their own citizens.

            United for Coal is correct that the Federal Government is to blame for their plight as well. But it is more the fault of a short sighted and gridlocked political system than are the environmental requirements for cleaner air and water.

           

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[i] Loeb, Penny, “Shear Madness,” US News and World Report (August 3 1997)

[ii] ibid

Losing Blair Mountain: The Mountaintop Removal of History

A federal judge yesterday ruled against the Sierra Club and other organizations in a case brought before the court to preserve Blair Mountain, a historic landmark in American and labor history. The ruling opens up the ability of a coal company to destroy the mountain, or at least a significant portion of it, through mountaintop removal mining.

I use this cyber soapbox often to point out how mountaintop removal is destroying our ecological and cultural heritage. In this case this mining practice will destroy part of our history as well. The largest armed conflict on American soil since the time of the Civil War occurred on Blair Mountain. In 1921, after years of lawless exploitation, 10,000 West Virginia miners marched against the oppression of the mine owners. Met with armed resistance by the local sheriff, hired mine guards, and a makeshift militia at Blair Mountain, a battle ensued. The conflict lasted ten days. President Warren G. Harding sent in the Army, including the Air Force, and included the use of aerial bombing.

            Once the Army came in and the bombs started to fall from the sky, the miners went home. The mine owners won this battle. It was not until 1933, under FDR’s first term, that West Virginia coal miners gained unionization.

            As far as labor history goes, the Battle of Blair Mountain bears the same significance as John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry does to the Civil War. And just as our understanding of the Civil War is incomplete without a knowledge and appreciation of Brown and his quixotic raid, we do not fully understand the New Deal or other achievements of the labor movement without a knowledge of the struggle of Blair Mountain.

Details about the court ruling can be found here. Briefly summarizing, the plaintiffs in this case were trying to have Blair Mountain returned to the National Register of Historic Places, which the National Park Service had bestowed on the landmark in the spring of 2009. Being on the register would keep the mountain safe from mountaintop removal. The judge ruled that the Sierra Club and others lack standing, the ability of a plaintiff to demonstrate to the court that the actions of the defendant would cause harm to the plaintiff.

Mountaintop coal mining has decimated the United Mine Workers, depressing wages and the economy of West Virginia and rolling back the accomplishments of the UMW and organized labor. What those miners fought for at the Battle of Blair Mountain is being lost. Losing the mountain as well makes this irony especially bitter.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring at 50: Why This Book Inspired and Where We Stand Today

Rachel Carson Postage Stamp issued in 1981

In the papers and scattered on the Internet folks are taking note of the 50^th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. As every introductory paragraph of every article or feature about the book has the phrase “inspired the modern environmental movement” or something of that nature, I’d like to take a moment to consider why this book created the fervor that it did and where we presently stand because of Carson and her book.

Carson targeted the use of pesticides, particularly DDT, in her book. Most Americans could not see the harmful effects from the misuse of these substances. They could not witness the cracking of the DDT weakened eggshells of pelicans and eagles and their subsequent empty nests, nor were most of the people living in this country privy to the topsy-turvy ecological landscapes created by pesticides.

            But Americans could bear witness to the harm industrialization caused their environments. And a large number of folks felt that things were getting worse. In 1955 Los Angeles declared its first smog alert. In the sixties and seventies these alerts became more frequent.[i] Beaches of Lake Erie that people had enjoyed for decades were closed because of pollution, and commercial fishing in that body of water had been severely impaired.[ii] Other lakes and rivers were increasingly fouled with industrial waste and poorly treated sewage.

            Though the specifics of the book differed from people’s everyday experiences, the central leitmotif of Silent Spring—that as far as Mother Nature was concerned something was out of whack and that we were, because of our carelessness and hubris in matters of the environment, the cause of that out of whackness—resonated with the American People.

            In many ways our environmental problems have increased since the time of Silent Spring. Mountaintop removal has destroyed over 500 mountains of Appalachia, as well as destroying communities and ruining the health of many Appalachians.  Oil spills still kill fish and waterfowl. These and other problems plague us and our environment despite the environmental movement and the workings of our government that Silent Spring inspired, such as the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, NEPA, and the EPA.

            Carson is often compared to Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, stirred antislavery sentiments and prepared the way for the Civil War and emancipation. I often think that as far as environmental awareness, we are living through a time comparable to the hundred years after the Civil War. Just as the sons and daughters, grandsons and daughters, of freed slaves were technically emancipated yet still enslaved by discrimination, segregation, and Jim Crow, we are environmentally safeguarded by the environmental laws of the early seventies yet still enslaved by the same mindset of hubris and carelessness that saw the spraying of hundreds of tons of DDT and other pesticides across field and forest that Carson addressed in Silent Spring.

            With anti-environmentalism threatening the 50 year legacy left by Silent Spring, it would be easy to despair. But we can also look forward as well. Like the struggle of civil rights 50 years ago, perhaps we are only beginning our work of environmentalism. I remain hopeful.

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[i] Chronology of California History: New Dreams 1945 to 1964 n.d. web 9/25/12

[ii] Hill, Gladwin. “Fight to Save an Ailing Lake Erie Nears the Crisis.” New York Times June 20, 1965: pg 50 print

President Obama Accepts Reality During His Acceptance Speech: So Why Am I Not Campaigning For Him?

Delivered as an obvious rebuke to the flippant dismissal that Romney gave the topic of climate change during the GOP convention, President Obama had this to say about a warming planet during his acceptance speech.

Well, three cheers! It’s good to hear a note of reality during a party convention speech. But as Obama talks the talk, please excuse me for being skeptical about our president walking the walk.

When he ran for president in 2008, Obama and his campaign promised “swift and comprehensive action to combat global climate change.”[i] Yet the tack on global warming that the administration took after gaining office was often tepid and cautious. During those first hundred days of the new administration, when Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and Oval Office, the administration more or less threw cold water on comprehensive legislation introduced to the House that would have capped greenhouse gasses.[ii] Also, for the International Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Obama waited until the last day to show up.[iii]

            Perhaps I have been expecting too much. After all, it’s impossible to describe the opposition that the GOP has presented to advancing any progress on reducing greenhouse gasses. And opposition on this issue also extends to the president’s own party.[iv] In his favor I do have to give Obama credit for raising standards for gas mileage for American cars. He didn’t need Congress for that.

Obviously, I can have no truck with a candidate who is dismissive of the dangers of rising seas and a planet that is wrapping itself more thickly in the thermal insulation of CO2, as Governor Romney did last week. I just wish that, campaign speeches and acceptance speeches aside, I could vote to reelect a president who had done more to keep the globe from getting hotter and hotter.

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[i] Broder, John M. “Obama, Who Vowed Rapid Action on Climate Change, Turns More Cautious.” New York Times April 11, 2009

[ii] ibid

[iii] Broder, John M. “Obama Shifts His Visit to Last Day of Climate Conference.” New York Times December 5, 2009

[iv] Broder, John M. “Climate Bill Threatened by Senators.” New York Times August 7, 2009