12/31/2002

Statue Dispute Continues

Staff
State Capitol

An environmental group plans to raise its voice again later this week in connection with a coal miner statue under construction on the grounds of the state capitol.

Members of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition will attend a meeting of the Capitol Building Commission Thursday meeting. The OVEC requested the meeting in connection with the plaques which surround the base of the yet-to-be-mounted statue.  

The coalition is upset because one of the plaques depicts the controversial Mountaintop Removal Mining technique. The group says another proposed plaque would be nothing more than a billboard for the West Virginia Coal Association. The environmental group says that plaque will say, “In recognition of the men and women who have devoted their careers to providing the state, country and world with low-cost household and industrial energy.”

Members of the OVEC say they have no problems with a statue to honor coal miners, but they say the proposed monument will not. They say nowhere does the monument, as it is now configured, pay tribute to those who have lost their lives.

The West Virginia Coal Association says the statue does honor coal miners and is an accurate account of the industry's history.

The Capitol Building Commission will meeting Thursday morning at 10 o'clock at the West Virginia Cultural Center in Charleston.