"Like Walking Onto Another Planet" - MTR Horrors Described

Carol Warren, a member of the Peace and Justice/Government Concerns Committee of the West Virginia Council of Churches, interviewed several folks who live in the shadow of mountaintop removal coal mining. People told Carol about incidents of intimidation against some outspoken residents.

She transcribed the interviews – which detail the intolerable conditions of living below valley fills, coal sludge impoundments and with well water apparently contaminated by coal slurry – into a booklet titled Like Walking Onto Another Planet. The title comes from the words Cynthia Karriker, of Sharples in Logan County, used to describe mountaintop removal. OVEC was one of the sponsors of the booklet; we helped Carol set up the interviews with affected residents. (Carol is working on Volume Two of this booklet. Call OVEC at (304) 522-0246 if you want to tell your story, and we’ll try to set up an interview.)

In May, three Catholic Sisters carried the booklet inside the Massey Energy’s annual stockholders’ meeting in a hotel in Richmond, Va. The Sisters made certain that each Massey board member received a copy.

Coal River Mountain Watch and Mountain Justice Summer protested outside, while the Sisters delivered their message inside.

Below are some excerpts from Jim Foster’s words in Like Walking Onto Another Planet. Jim lives in Bob White, Boone County, WV.

"I’m Jim Foster. I’ll soon be 78 years old. I was born at what’s called the old Y and O Coal Camp. I grew up here and I’ve lived here all my life except for a brief time when I was in the United States Marine Corps. (At 17) I went to work at the coal mines and worked about ten months. (After two years in the Marines, I) came back and worked in the coal industry then until 1983 when I retired.

"… I’m the kind of person that has always been proud of my heritage. My father was a coal miner. I had three brothers was coal miners… I feel like the work we done underground coal mining, we needed the coal to produce electricity and stuff that our nation needs. But I believe they could mine it better without destroying the environment like they’re doing with mountaintop removal.

"When I was just a young man, when I first saw coal mining through strip mining – which was a disaster to me – I’ll never forget what my dad said. He said, "Son, this is the ruination of our state if they allow this strip mining to go on like that. They can’t do that in these mountains and survive." Which was true, I knew that. But I’ve said I’m proud my dad didn’t live to see this mountaintop removal because if he had, he would absolutely… it would have broke his heart. If he knew it today, he would turn over in his grave.

"I believe they can mine the coal and do it underground and not do the damage to the environment like they’re doin’. The only reason they’re doin’ it the way they’re doin’ it with mountaintop removal is because they can do it with dynamite and machinery instead of workin’ men. They don’t want to pay men a decent wage to mine the coal – they want to use mountaintop removal.

"… One person can’t do anything, but if everybody would open their eyes to the fact of what’s happenin’ and do somethin’, stand up to ‘em, they might listen to ‘em.

"… Probably after I’m dead and gone they’ll pass on new laws that will outlaw this. I just wish they had done it sooner so that some of the generations that’s comin’ on ahead of me could have a better place to live."

You can read all of Jim’s interview and the other compelling stories here:

www.ohvec.org/issues/mountaintop_removal/misc/ovec_mtrbooklet.pdf