This news story originally provided by WV Metro News

March 31, 2005

Two Sides On Coal Rally Face Off

Staff
Charleston

Their rallies took place only a few hundred feet apart, but groups for and against coal mining are miles apart in their opinions on the future of the state's best known industry.

Several hundred coal miners, operators and their families attended the Annual 'Friends of Coal' Rally outside the State Capitol Thursday, but just after that gathering broke up, the anti-mountaintop removal group called 'Mountain Justice Summer' rallied with a smaller, but just as vocal crowd.

Coal miner Bob Dickerson of Cabin Creek says the protesters don't understand the economics of coal.

"As a state, West Virginia stands poised and ready to capitalize on the one good thing we have." Dickerson says coal is the future of the state no matter what the protesters think.

Dickerson works for a mountaintop removal company, but he says it's a very small number of mountains that are being affected. He says the company does a good job restoring the land after the mining is over. He admits the restoration takes several years, but he says it's done right.

Dickerson says he was born and raised in West Virginia and, at times, it's been tough to survive as a coal miner. He says now that coal is booming he wants to be able to keep his children in West Virginia.

Vernon Halton of Beaver was protesting with 'Mountain Justice Summer' whose goal is to educate the public about the dangers of mountaintop removal mining. Halton says the technique has cost jobs. He says there fewer miners working in the state today. He says mountaintop removal destroys the economy, homes and the environment.

Halton says the only reason the coal market is doing well is because Americans have a mad lust for energy.

Halton dismisses the argument that mountaintop removal only impacts a small portion of West Virginia. "People forget that people live in the mountains and our whole communities have been wiped out." He says it's projected the Coal River Valley will one day have 75 percent of its land affected by mountaintop removal.