Big Coal is Back, and Not For The Better

by Dianne Bady

In Raleigh, Boone, Kanawha and other southern counties, Big Coal is back. The first time they mined these areas, they left some coal behind in the mountains. Now they’re back, blowing up mountains and burying the hollows…for the good of the country, of course. Bush’s policies dictate that West Virginia people’s homes have to be blown up for Homeland Security reasons.

We’re sad to see that newly-retired Marshall University football coach Bobby Pruett is starting a new job. Now he’s a paid spokesman for Friends of Coal, that down-home group run by a top public relations firm and funded by Big Coal. We sure wish the good coach would switch teams. Trouble is, our team can’t pay.

Mr. Pruett’s father died of black lung and his father-in-law was killed in a mine slate fall. If coal mining had done that to my family, I’d be seriously peeved. Large portions of Raleigh County, Pruett’s home county, are being blown up or buried with what-used-to-be-mountains. If big swaths of my childhood county were now being obliterated, I’d be downright livid.

It’s discouraging that Big Coal not only has the best politicians money can buy, they also can hire well-loved people to shill for them. People who can help Big Coal legitimize things like driving American citizens out of their ancestral homes because those homes are in the way of Homeland Security’s need for more, More, MORE coal. While Bush smiles and says he’s protecting America’s regular citizens, he’s also lying about how he’s encouraging renewable energy. Renewable energy companies didn’t pay for Bush’s election campaign. Fossil fuel guys did.

West Virginia is the top state in annual pounds of explosives used within its borders.

We’re also Number One in FEMA disaster aid. There is a connection here. Many coalfields folks realize that all those mountaintop removal mines on top of them aren’t doing them any good at all. In fact, the collapsing valley fills, the breaks in toxic sludge impoundments and the floods that wash away homes and kill people have all become a pretty big nuisance.

How sad that “our” governor, and “our” legislative leaders are so busy pledging allegiance to Big Coal that they can’t be bothered to notice. After all, if they had to publicly notice that large portions of their state really are being blown up by outside elements, it could put a major dent in their next elections’ campaign coffers.

Dianne is OVEC’s co-director.