This article originally published by The State Journal

May 18, 2007

Miners Rally Against Court Rulings

Story by Beth Gorczyca Ryan Email | Bio

During the past few months, the future of hundreds of miners has been in the hands of West Virginia-based federal judges.

Now, miners and community members in the places where the mines operate are trying to make sure everyone understands what the cost of those decisions could be in both dollars and jobs.

The United Mine Workers of America has scheduled a "Save Our Jobs -- Save Our Local Economy" rally May 17 to attract attention to how decisions by U.S. District Judges Joseph Goodwin and Robert Chambers could impact both miners and people living around mines.

"We realize now it's time to fight for our lives and for our jobs," said Roger Horton of the UMWA Local 5958, which is based in Logan County. "This is just the beginning of a grassroots effort to let the world know we intend to mine coal, and we intend to mine it responsibly."

The rally was spurred by a temporary injunction filed in April by environmental groups challenging a new permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to Apogee Coal Co.'s Guyan surface mine. The environmental groups -- Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and Coal River Mountain Watch -- allege the permit does not comply with environmental law.

Goodwin is expected to consider the motion during a May 31 hearing. The motion relates to a case Goodwin is quite familiar with. Several years ago, the environmental groups sued the Corps challenging the legality of a specific permit process, known as a nationwide 21 permit. Goodwin ruled for the environmental groups, blocking the Corps from issuing the permits, but that ruling was overturned on appeal last year.

If the temporary injunction is issued, Horton said 262 miner jobs could be lost. Plus, he said, 1,800 spinoff jobs in Logan County and surrounding areas could be in jeopardy.

He said miners, community leaders and business owners are banding together during the rally to make sure those jobs don't disappear. He said Apogee Coal Co., which is a subsidiary of Magnum Coal, operates in an environmentally responsible way and abides by the Clean Water Act, Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. But still, he said, some groups oppose mining.

"What we feel is happening is there are those that are absolutely opposed to burning coal," Horton said. "They've realized all they have to do is stall us, and we lose revenue. And if a company loses revenue, it can't operate. So they pack up their bags. These groups realize that ultimately even if they lose the case, they've still won."

OVEC director Dianne Bady disagrees. She said the environmental group is not opposed to all types of mining, just mountaintop removal mining.

"It's not an issue of coal mining," she said. "It's an issue of mountaintop removal mining and illegal valley fills, and the permanent and irreversible environmental damage they cause. ...

"But they are right. We are never going to stop pushing for legal coal mining. We are not going to back down on wanting to see every law followed to the letter."

She said the rally in Logan County is a thinly masked anti-OVEC rally. And she said it is blatantly unfair for the miners to blame the environmental group for possible layoffs when it is the company and the Corps that are engaging in illegal permitting practices.

"It's not our fault that their employers made a conscientious decision to mine in ways that three federal judges have found illegal in the past seven years," she said.

She said while workers may be concerned about the future of their jobs, other people are concerned about those surface mining operations, particularly those living near the sites.

"(The miners) act as if there is only one set of people being harmed," Bady said. "But there are many families' lives that are being destroyed by this."

Bady said the group has hundreds of members who live in the southern coalfields, including Logan County. She said those members, as well as the group as a whole, know the region needs jobs and economic development. But they say mountaintop removal mining is not a logical answer for the economic development problem.

"The water at these sites is often poisoned when the mining is done," she said. "You can't have economic development on a site where the water is poisonous or has disappeared altogether. ... We'd be happy to work with others to find out how we can create jobs without blowing up a mountaintop."

Workers at the Guyan surface mine are not the first coal miners this year to learn their job may be in jeopardy. Earlier this spring, Chambers ruled in a different lawsuit that the Corps did not adhere to environmental laws when granting valley fill permits to four mines owned by Massey Energy subsidiaries. Chambers ordered the mines' valley fill permits be rescinded immediately and prohibited the operations from engaging in activities authorized under those permits. In addition, Chambers remanded the permits to the Corps for a new review.

Within a few weeks of that ruling, 120 miners at one subsidiary were told to prepare for layoffs. Chambers later granted a stay allowing the mining companies to continue filling existing valley fills while the ruling is appealed. The workers were allowed to return to work.

Jason Bostic with the West Virginia Coal Association, which intervened in support of the Corps in the cases, said the Goodwin and Chambers decisions have a huge impact on the state, its economy and its residents. He said the cases are just as important as the 1999 decision by the late U.S. District Judge Charles Haden, which halted a large mountaintop removal mining site.

But unlike Haden's 1999 decision, the current court cases are getting little attention.

"It has been extremely frustrating to us," Bostic said. "One of the biggest differences was that Haden's decision was the touch of death because active mines had to stop immediately. The Goodwin and Chambers decisions don't have that immediate action. (These decisions) are a slow death as opposed to putting a gun to your head and blowing your brains out. ... They have the same level of detriment, it's just that now we are dying of a terminal disease instead of a fatal wound."