This news story originally provided by Lexington Herald-Leader

August 1, 2005

MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL

Mining destroys land, spirit

By Silas House

I take issue with everything Steven Gardner said in his commentary about mountaintop removal, but one error that must be corrected is his claim that the author's tour of mountaintop removal sites was paid for with public funds. We paid our own way.

We paid for our own food, gas, lodging and whatever else it took to make the tour work because we believed in what we were doing.

Another point that must be clarified is that we're not trying to turn fiction into fact. I have merely reported what I've seen with my own eyes. I can't comprehend anyone thinking that any kind of erosion is a good thing, much less "accelerated erosion," as Gardner calls mountaintop removal.

The only thing that the coal companies and their supporters want to talk about is reclaimed land. That's their only playing card. Even if land was properly reclaimed (and very often it's not), why is it that they never take personal responsibility?

Gardner claims that "when mistakes are made, people or companies should be accountable." But all one has to do is check Appalachian history (the Buffalo Creek disaster, the Harlan County strikes, the Martin County sludge spill, etc.) to see that the companies have not been accountable.

When they make a mistake that costs taxpayers millions of dollars, they chalk it up as an "act of God."

What Gardner failed to reveal in his commentary is that he is closely connected to the mining industry. A quick search on Google yielded five pages of links about Gardner's intimate ties to the coal companies (and several similar commentaries, all written before the authors' tour).

As president of a large engineering firm that makes money from the coal industry, Gardner is only protecting his assets. And that's fine and respectable. However, it is not fine or respectable to say that members of the authors' tour are writing fiction about the coal industry.

It's the oldest insult in the world to accuse writers of being liars, and I am sick of it. We're not making things up, and most people know this.

Like many of the authors involved, I am striving to be better educated about the practice of mountaintop removal. Gardner seems to claim he knows everything there is to know about the subject, but I don't. And I've never acted as if I did.

But no matter how many statistics are thrown on the table before me, I can't deny what I see every time I drive across Eastern Kentucky. I can't turn a silent ear to the stories people tell me about living in the shadow of mountaintop removal.

Unlike Gardner, I've never played golf, but I have lived in Eastern Kentucky and experienced the ill effects of mountaintop removal.

I'm not completely against coal mining. Without it, my family would probably still be poor. But it can be done in a more responsible manner. That's really all the authors are asking.

I don't care how someone might benefit from this leveled land 50 years from now. I think only about the parents who can't afford to buy cases of bottled water or go golfing because they're too busy drilling a new well every other month to replace the ones collapsed because of blasting, or getting their cars repaired because of roads destroyed by overloaded coal trucks.

Even Gardner says that "mining is inherently destructive." What he fails to realize is that we are talking about more than destroying land, which is bad enough in itself. We're also talking about how the spirit of the people is being damaged. Those people know that it's wrong to make a profit off others' suffering, just as it is wrong to make a profit by destroying the land. And that's what's happening in Eastern Kentucky.