The People Comment Passionately On
Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

July 24, 2003

Comments by Chuck Wyrostok, Spencer, WV

This EIS report is an unhealthy example of the type of doublespeak emanating from Washington, D.C. these days. I can understand the delay in the release of such

a document. It has to be embarrassing to some of its authors. Who would be proud of a document that makes a strong case for protecting the environment while recommending a speedier way to destroy it.

If our government was controlled by the people…and for the people…we wouldn't have to be here today defending our mountains from mutilation. We wouldn't have to deal with the perverse logic of an EIS report that tells us of vast environmental damage from mountaintop mining and then makes it easier to get permits to do this very same damage. And we wouldn't have to deal with the dark minds that control the mining industry who would destroy one of the world's most diverse ecosystems for the sake of profit…if we had a government controlled by its people.

There's already a healthy mistrust for the federal government in this neck o' the woods, and this EIS report doesn't help.

Today, miners, drivers and their famililes are faced with terrible choices…they're being asked to transform their woods, their hunting grounds and fishing streams into barren wastelands, or lose their jobs. It's an awful choice…one they shouldn't have to make. Many are here today. If you look into the hearts of many people here, you'll see many of your neighbors, everyday folks like yourselves, thinking about their choice to have a home and a decent life in these hills and hollows of this beautiful land….these mountains that God made.

Some people say there will eventually be jobs at Wal-Marts and fast foods, but who can live on minimum wage and no benefits? We must all work together to find a way to keep our mountain heritage and have good jobs, too. If federal agencies can bail out savings and loan banks…bail out the airlines…with billions of our tax money…then they can help coalfields people into good paying jobs here. Federal subsidies could create jobs in alternative energy research, development and construction…jobs with a future. Are we to become an energy sacrifice zone because we can't all pull together for a more diverse economic future? Surely we can do better.

We're not about to have this government, controlled by industry, destroy our way of life. These mountains are not an impediment to progress…they are our soul…we reject the premise that having jobs while devastating our land forever… is a good thing. It is a dead end path.

As Woody Guthrie put it, this land is our land. The water, the air, the soil that sustains us…these are our rights and the vital ingredients of the common good. A good government report would not only reflect that, but would find ways to sustain that common good. A good government would support those rights. A good government wouldn't issue a report that talks out of both sides of its mouth.