Mountain Blog

Strip Mining? What Susanna said......

Susanna Rodell left as the editorial page editor of the Charleston Gazette last week. Her parting shot was a column explaining why she, a liberal, isn't 100 percent behind the tree-huggers who oppose strlip-mining.

You'll find the column here.

I have lots of tree-huggers I consider my friends, whether they consider me their friends or not. And I wouldn't stop them in their attempts to end strip-mining in West Virginia if my life depended on it. But I won't join them in a whole-hearted movement to ban stri-mining for the same reasons that Susanna states in her column.

About 30 percent of West Virginia's coal is mined by strippers. To reduce West Virignia's coal output by 30 percent would have a dramatically negative effect on this state's tax income. And that would mean cutbacks that would directly affect the poor.

Besides, to elminate coal as a major supplier of energy in this country would drive energy prices much higher. Who would that hurt? The poor mostly.

I hate to see the results of strip-mining. Beautiful second-growth forests are being destroyed daily. I have four acres and recently, a 100-year-old pin oak on my property died, apparently from oak wilt. I was bummed out for days. I hate to see any centernarian die, be it human or oak. Imagine what it's like to kill a thousand 100-year-old trees every day. Bad karma, if you ask me.

But what happens if coal isn't available to fuel the power plants? Old people would have to pay more for electricity to run their fans and air conditioners in the summer and their heaters in the winter. That's the irony in this controversy.

I have no answer, no replacement for coal mining of any kind. All we can do is make sure the coal barons follow the rules when they strip and fine them when they don't. Meanwhile, we must believe that coal can be mined and burned with zero environmental damage. And someday, maybe not in our lifetimes, we'll have cheap, non-polluting energy sources.

Meanwhile, all I can do is try to maintain balance on my four acres. And the fact I have no coal, strippable or otherwise, lets me do that.

posted by Dave Peyton @ 12:30 PM