SCOTT SHALAWAY King coal has more than an economic price

Coal mining is a big, controversial business. If we want electricity, we've got to burn coal, but it carries far more than its economic price.
For example, though coal-fired power plants provide most of our electricity, the economic impact from labor's perspective shrinks yearly. According to a recent commentary in the New York Times, in West Virginia alone, coal mining employment declined from 140,000 jobs in the 1940s to approximately 15,000 today. We burn more coal than ever, but thanks to technological advances and efficient extraction techniques, fewer miners benefit. Yet company profits climb.
Steep cost
Today's efficient mining techniques also impose a steep environmental cost. Longwall mining removes 1,000-ft. wide swaths of material hundreds of feet under ground. When the mine roof collapses, subsidence often occurs near the surface. That results in roads collapsing, foundations cracking, wells drying up, springs disappearing, and stream degradation.
Why just a few years ago, traffic was disrupted for months when portions of Interstate 470 in Ohio literally caved in. Repairs totaled millions of dollars, all at taxpayer expense. And when water supplies vanish, it's tough for people who depend on wells and springs to cook and bathe, and farmers can't water their livestock.
Though offending mining companies are required to provide water to those who lose it, I hear repeatedly how insufficient their efforts are. Earlier this year I attended a public forum on longwall mining at Wheeling Jesuit University and listened to the coal company representative say all the right things to appease the crowd. His mastery of defusing the situation and putting off specific corrective action was admirable.
Room and pillar mining, which minimizes subsidence is still a viable mining technique. But it requires more labor and is less profitable. Not unprofitable, just less profitable.
Another consequence of underground mines are mountain breaks -- cracks and crevices in the earth that can swallow up an unsuspecting hunter or hiker. Back in April a story in the Charleston Gazette-Mail brought this problem to my attention for the first time.
The most offensive mining technique, though, is mountaintop removal, and it's quite common in southern West Virginia and parts of Kentucky. Instead of burrowing under mountains for coal, operators literally blast off the mountaintops. Entire communities, rocked by explosions, dust, and debris, have been abandoned.
Considerable rubble
The considerable rubble left behind is then deposited in nearby streams and valleys. (I wonder if valley fills are related to the devastating floods southern West Virginia has suffered in recent years. Perhaps profoundly disturbed landscapes simply cannot handle heavy rains.).
Ironically, mountaintop removal may prove its own undoing. Outsiders are hearing about it, and they're outraged. West Virginia's image is one of wild, wonderful mountains and scenic vistas. If people get upset about drilling for oil in Alaska, where few will ever venture, it's understandable that they would be equally offended by industrial rape of places much closer to home.
In the May 20 New Yorker, a piece entitled "Bad Environments" railed against mountaintop removal.
A May 11 editorial in the Los Angles Times described mountaintop removal as: "legalizing permanent ruin of the countryside to temporarily, very temporarily, increase coal production and fatten the coffers of mining companies."
And a May 6 editorial in the Lakeland Ledger in Florida lamented that more than 1,000 miles of Appalachian streams have already been buried by mountain fill.
And then there's the "monster truck" issue. In southern West Virginia, where many people are poor and politically impotent, coal trucks routinely exceed the 65,000-pound weight limit on windy mountain roads. And people, sometimes entire families, keep dying when these behemoths rage out of control.
Legislature's response
The Legislature's response to a deadly issue under its control seems to be to simply raise the weight limits. After all, what's more important, the lives a few hillbillies every year or the business of coal?
Let me be clear. I know we need coal to produce electricity. The hydrogen economy is coming, but it's still 20 years downstream. Meanwhile, let's mine and transport coal responsibly, and make mining companies responsible when their methods destroy lives, buildings, roads, and water supplies, and when they emasculate an entire state's natural heritage.
sshalaway@aol.com.