My Polluted Kentucky Home
By SILAS HOUSE
The New York Times
Berea, Ky.
LAST weekend I joined 19 other Kentuckians in a sit-in at the office of Gov. Steve Beshear. We were there to protest his support of mountaintop removal, a technique used by coal-mining companies that, as its name implies, involves blasting away the tops of mountains and hills to get at the coal seams beneath them.
Since it was first used in 1970, mountaintop removal has destroyed some 500 mountains and poisoned at least 1,200 miles of rivers and streams across the Appalachian coal-mining region. Yet Governor Beshear is so committed to the practice that he recently allied with the Kentucky Coal Association in a suit against the Environmental Protection Agency to block more stringent regulations of it. In court his administration’s lawyers referred to public opposition as simply “an unwarranted burden.”
The news media and the rest of the country typically think of mountaintop removal as an environmental problem. But it’s a human crisis as well, scraping away not just coal but also the freedoms of Appalachian residents, people who have always been told they are of less value than the resources they live above.
Over the past six years I’ve visited dozens of people who live at the edge of mountaintop removal sites. They bathe their children in water that has arsenic levels as high as 130 times what the E.P.A. deems safe to drink.
Their roads are routinely destroyed by overloaded trucks; their air is clouded with pollutants. Their schools sit below ponds holding billions of gallons of sludge. Their children lose sleep worrying that the sludge dams will break, releasing the sludge down upon them. It happened 40 years ago at Buffalo Creek, W.Va., killing 125 people, and it could happen again today.
It’s a horrible way to live. And yet, as it does in many other impoverished quarters of America, the news too often avoids covering Appalachia as if it were a no man’s land.
When a 3-year-old Virginia boy was crushed to death in his crib after a half-ton boulder was accidentally (and illegally) dislodged by a mining company, it barely made the national news. Many people around here believe the omission reflected that the child lived in a trailer home in the heart of coal country.
In 2000, 306 million gallons of sludge — 30 times more than the volume of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez — buried parts of Martin County, Ky., as deep as 5 feet. Yet hardly anyone outside the region remembers the disaster, if they ever heard about it.
More recently, my friend Judy’s grandson was playing in a creek when he was suddenly surrounded by dozens of dead fish. Tests later proved that a coal company was releasing polyacrylamide — a cancer-causing agent used to prepare coal for burning — into the creek. When Judy complained to the state, no one replied. She recently died of brain cancer.
I’ve heard dozens of stories like these, but they rarely make it beyond the mountains. Is it any wonder then that Appalachian residents feel invisible?
In fact, invisible is how we’ve been taught to think of ourselves since coal was first discovered here. When I was little, teachers would stand over my desk and tell me that I had to change my accent if I wanted to get ahead in the world. Never mind that I had nearly perfect grammar and spelling.
We were also told the success of the mines mattered above all else, that if we complained about the dust, noise and disrespect pumped out by the mine in our community, people would lose jobs.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
Showing posts with label Appalachia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Appalachia. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Zada Mae: No, I Don’t Find Your Hillbilly Jokes Funny: Cultural Stereotyping & the Destruction of Appalachia
No, I Don’t Find Your Hillbilly Jokes Funny: Cultural Stereotyping & the Destruction of Appalachia
By Zada Mae
The Seams & the Story
...
As an anti-mountaintop removal activist currently living outside of Appalachia, challenging mainstream cultural assumptions about the region is a critical part of my work against strip mining. Admittedly, I don’t always do this well. I’ve sometimes found myself staying quiet when hillbilly* jokes are made, afraid of seeming argumentative or overly politically correct. These are poor excuses, especially because commonly held cultural assumptions about Appalachians are not harmless. They are part of what allows destructive practices like mountaintop removal, which has leveled over four hundred peaks across the region and sullies its’ air and water, to occur.
Let’s face it: Many Americans see Appalachian people as expendable. Consciously or not, when we stereotype them as white, poor, uneducated, backward, patriarchal and racist we are justifying our comfort (the comfort brought to us from light and heat via mountaintop removal coal) at the expense of Appalachians dying from poisoned air and water. Many Appalachian activists have suggested that if mountaintop removal were happening in more culturally important or affluent areas, it would not be tolerated.
In her essays “Moved by Mountains” and “To Be Whole & Holy,” black feminist and native Kentuckian bell hooks writes eloquently about the real world consequences of stereotyping backwoods folk. In the former essay, hooks, who was brought up in black hillbilly culture (thus challenging the notion that all mountaineers are white) writes:
It is not difficult to see the link between the engrained stereotypes about mountain folk (hillbillies), especially those who are poor, representations that suggest that these folks are depraved, evil, ignorant, licentious, and the prevailing belief that there is nothing worth honoring, worth preserving about their habits of being, their culture . . . To truly create a social ethical context wherein masses of American citizens can empathize with the life experiences of Appalachians we must consistently challenge dehumanizing public representations of poverty and the poor.
Are there some rural, white Appalachians who are racist and patriarchal? Certainly. Do I think it’s important to call people out on their racism/patriarchy and engage in dialogue with them about it, if possible? Of course. But these actions must be coupled with continued examination of our own prejudices. In “To Be Whole & Holy,” hooks writes:
Houses in the hollows close to ours [growing up] were inhabited by poor white folk, who we were taught were rabid racists . . . Even if they were by chance neighborly, we were taught to mistrust their kindness . . .Racial hatred and the racist actions it engenders are not the exclusive domains of poor whites. Class prejudice is at the core of their belief that these white people are more likely to be free of racial prejudice . . .I have found white neighborhoods in all the privileged-class neighborhoods I have lived in across the United States, including Kentucky, to have as much a presence of racial prejudice as their poor counterparts.
I see racism and patriarchy among the New York City coffee shop crowd I interact with daily, and grew up with it in the suburbs, where whites are struggling with their prejudices in the face of growing and vibrant black and Hispanic communities. I’d like to go so far as to suggest that, by demarcating a white other (in this case, rural Appalachians) as more racist & sexist than us (progressives/radicals living in urban, affluent areas), we avoid confronting our own prejudices. Stereotyping also carries with it an inherent classism and cultural bias that lets us privilege certain forms of knowledge, such as college degrees and careers, over traditional Appalachian skills like wild crafting, hunting, crafting and food storing. I’ve found Appalachia to have as much, if not more, cultural richness as New York City, where I live now, and the liberal arts college town that I called home for two years.
Appalachian activism, culture and values have had tremendous impacts on life in the United States. Union coal miners put their lives on the line, and sometimes lost them, for worker’s rights, and we have reaped the rewards of their legacy. The miners who fought in the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor insurrection in United States history, laid the foundation for a national movement that eventually won the eight-hour day, weekends and minimum wage. Appalachians were pioneers of popular education, founding the Highlander Folk School and settlement schools, and were critical leaders and allies in the Civil Rights Movement. Appalachia gave us the songs of Johnny Cash, the liberal hipness of Asheville, North Carolina and an anarchic spirit of resistance all but dead in the contemporary United States. I am constantly awed and intimidated by the skills my friends who grew up in southern Appalachia possess– deep knowledge of the mountains, the land, traditional crafts and community history.
If we are choosing to fight capitalism and oppression, whether generally or in their specific manifestations through the destruction of the globe’s most ancient mountain range, we must examine our own understandings and popular representations of hillbilly culture. To win this struggle and any other that impacts Appalachia, it is imperative that we stand in solidarity with its people and call on our comrades to do the same.
To Read the Entire Essay
By Zada Mae
The Seams & the Story
...
As an anti-mountaintop removal activist currently living outside of Appalachia, challenging mainstream cultural assumptions about the region is a critical part of my work against strip mining. Admittedly, I don’t always do this well. I’ve sometimes found myself staying quiet when hillbilly* jokes are made, afraid of seeming argumentative or overly politically correct. These are poor excuses, especially because commonly held cultural assumptions about Appalachians are not harmless. They are part of what allows destructive practices like mountaintop removal, which has leveled over four hundred peaks across the region and sullies its’ air and water, to occur.
Let’s face it: Many Americans see Appalachian people as expendable. Consciously or not, when we stereotype them as white, poor, uneducated, backward, patriarchal and racist we are justifying our comfort (the comfort brought to us from light and heat via mountaintop removal coal) at the expense of Appalachians dying from poisoned air and water. Many Appalachian activists have suggested that if mountaintop removal were happening in more culturally important or affluent areas, it would not be tolerated.
In her essays “Moved by Mountains” and “To Be Whole & Holy,” black feminist and native Kentuckian bell hooks writes eloquently about the real world consequences of stereotyping backwoods folk. In the former essay, hooks, who was brought up in black hillbilly culture (thus challenging the notion that all mountaineers are white) writes:
It is not difficult to see the link between the engrained stereotypes about mountain folk (hillbillies), especially those who are poor, representations that suggest that these folks are depraved, evil, ignorant, licentious, and the prevailing belief that there is nothing worth honoring, worth preserving about their habits of being, their culture . . . To truly create a social ethical context wherein masses of American citizens can empathize with the life experiences of Appalachians we must consistently challenge dehumanizing public representations of poverty and the poor.
Are there some rural, white Appalachians who are racist and patriarchal? Certainly. Do I think it’s important to call people out on their racism/patriarchy and engage in dialogue with them about it, if possible? Of course. But these actions must be coupled with continued examination of our own prejudices. In “To Be Whole & Holy,” hooks writes:
Houses in the hollows close to ours [growing up] were inhabited by poor white folk, who we were taught were rabid racists . . . Even if they were by chance neighborly, we were taught to mistrust their kindness . . .Racial hatred and the racist actions it engenders are not the exclusive domains of poor whites. Class prejudice is at the core of their belief that these white people are more likely to be free of racial prejudice . . .I have found white neighborhoods in all the privileged-class neighborhoods I have lived in across the United States, including Kentucky, to have as much a presence of racial prejudice as their poor counterparts.
I see racism and patriarchy among the New York City coffee shop crowd I interact with daily, and grew up with it in the suburbs, where whites are struggling with their prejudices in the face of growing and vibrant black and Hispanic communities. I’d like to go so far as to suggest that, by demarcating a white other (in this case, rural Appalachians) as more racist & sexist than us (progressives/radicals living in urban, affluent areas), we avoid confronting our own prejudices. Stereotyping also carries with it an inherent classism and cultural bias that lets us privilege certain forms of knowledge, such as college degrees and careers, over traditional Appalachian skills like wild crafting, hunting, crafting and food storing. I’ve found Appalachia to have as much, if not more, cultural richness as New York City, where I live now, and the liberal arts college town that I called home for two years.
Appalachian activism, culture and values have had tremendous impacts on life in the United States. Union coal miners put their lives on the line, and sometimes lost them, for worker’s rights, and we have reaped the rewards of their legacy. The miners who fought in the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor insurrection in United States history, laid the foundation for a national movement that eventually won the eight-hour day, weekends and minimum wage. Appalachians were pioneers of popular education, founding the Highlander Folk School and settlement schools, and were critical leaders and allies in the Civil Rights Movement. Appalachia gave us the songs of Johnny Cash, the liberal hipness of Asheville, North Carolina and an anarchic spirit of resistance all but dead in the contemporary United States. I am constantly awed and intimidated by the skills my friends who grew up in southern Appalachia possess– deep knowledge of the mountains, the land, traditional crafts and community history.
If we are choosing to fight capitalism and oppression, whether generally or in their specific manifestations through the destruction of the globe’s most ancient mountain range, we must examine our own understandings and popular representations of hillbilly culture. To win this struggle and any other that impacts Appalachia, it is imperative that we stand in solidarity with its people and call on our comrades to do the same.
To Read the Entire Essay
Monday, September 27, 2010
Jeff Biggers: Mass Arrests in DC -- We Shall No Longer Be Crucified Upon the Cross of Coal
Mass Arrests in DC: We Shall No Longer Be Crucified Upon the Cross of Coal
by Jeff Biggers
Common Dreams
Over one hundred protesters from the Appalachian coalfields were arrested in front of the White House today, defiantly calling on the Obama administration to abolish mountaintop removal mining. As part of the Appalachia Rising events, the coalfield residents took part in a multi-day series of events to bring the escalating human rights, environmental and health care crisis to the nation's capitol.
Kentuckians for the Commonwealth leaders Teri Blanton and Mickey McCoy, the first arrested in today's nonviolent act of civil disobedience, were joined by allies from around the country, including NASA climatologist James Hansen. Meanwhile, protesters led by the legendary Rev. Billy Talen staged a nearby sit-in at the office of the PNC bank, which remains one of the last major financiers of coal companies engaged in this extreme form of strip-mining in Appalachia.
In a stark reminder of the national connection to the coalfields, the Obama administration officials looked on from their White House offices, as their electricity came from a coal-fired plant generated partly with coal stripmined from Appalachia.
As a litmus test of the administration's commitment to science and the rule of law, Appalachian residents are calling on the EPA to halt any new permit on the upcoming decision over the massive Spruce mountaintop removal mine.
Mountaintop removal coal only provides, in fact, less than 10 percent of all coal production.
Fed up with the regulatory crisis and circumventions by outside coal companies, coalfield residents have been rising up against reckless strip-mining practices against the country, from Alaska to Alabama to Arizona.
In southern Illinois, scores of black crosses were found at coal mines, strip mines, coal-fired plants, coal ash piles, and at the Southern Illinois University Coal Research Center.
To Read the Rest of the Report
by Jeff Biggers
Common Dreams
Over one hundred protesters from the Appalachian coalfields were arrested in front of the White House today, defiantly calling on the Obama administration to abolish mountaintop removal mining. As part of the Appalachia Rising events, the coalfield residents took part in a multi-day series of events to bring the escalating human rights, environmental and health care crisis to the nation's capitol.
Kentuckians for the Commonwealth leaders Teri Blanton and Mickey McCoy, the first arrested in today's nonviolent act of civil disobedience, were joined by allies from around the country, including NASA climatologist James Hansen. Meanwhile, protesters led by the legendary Rev. Billy Talen staged a nearby sit-in at the office of the PNC bank, which remains one of the last major financiers of coal companies engaged in this extreme form of strip-mining in Appalachia.
In a stark reminder of the national connection to the coalfields, the Obama administration officials looked on from their White House offices, as their electricity came from a coal-fired plant generated partly with coal stripmined from Appalachia.
As a litmus test of the administration's commitment to science and the rule of law, Appalachian residents are calling on the EPA to halt any new permit on the upcoming decision over the massive Spruce mountaintop removal mine.
Mountaintop removal coal only provides, in fact, less than 10 percent of all coal production.
Fed up with the regulatory crisis and circumventions by outside coal companies, coalfield residents have been rising up against reckless strip-mining practices against the country, from Alaska to Alabama to Arizona.
In southern Illinois, scores of black crosses were found at coal mines, strip mines, coal-fired plants, coal ash piles, and at the Southern Illinois University Coal Research Center.
To Read the Rest of the Report
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Jeff Biggers: Big Coal Tea Party in DC Today Betrays Real Coal Miners’ Crisis
Big Coal Tea Party in DC Today Betrays Real Coal Miners’ Crisis
by Jeff Biggers
AlterNet
Now it’s Big Coal’s turn to pick up the tab for the Tea Party.
Under the guise of “celebrating the American coal miner,” an infamous K-Street Big Coal front lobby group has bankrolled the buses, hotels and meals to bring Appalachian coal mining supporters to Washington, DC today. According to their press releases, they will be greeted in the halls of Congress by sycophantic Big Coal-bankrolled politicians, from “million-dollar Big Coal-lobby-money- man” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) from the Appalachian states.
Today’s rally continues the Big Coal Gone Wild episodes of the now debunked Faces of Coal.
In truth, the extremists trolling through the halls of Congress are not concerned about the “American miners.” You won’t hear anyone defending coal miners in 25 other states today. With a classic divide and conquer strategy, Big Coal lobbyists are fomenting fear and exaggerating potential jobs loss from halting human rights-violating mountaintop removal operations, as outside corporate coal interests in Appalachia circle their wagons in front of our nation’s Capitol.
More importantly, Big Coal lobbyists are desperate to keep the media and the general American public from learning that heavily mechanized strip-mining operations, which account for most of our coal today, have wiped out more than 60 percent of the Appalachian coal jobs in the last 25 years–at least 10-15 times more job loss than any potential environmental regulations. By placing a stranglehold on any economic diversity in the coalfields, strip-mining operations have also led to the highest unemployment and poverty rates; a West Virginia University study last year pointed out that “coal mining costs Appalachians five times more in early deaths as the industry provides to the region in jobs.”
To Read the Rest of the Article
by Jeff Biggers
AlterNet
Now it’s Big Coal’s turn to pick up the tab for the Tea Party.
Under the guise of “celebrating the American coal miner,” an infamous K-Street Big Coal front lobby group has bankrolled the buses, hotels and meals to bring Appalachian coal mining supporters to Washington, DC today. According to their press releases, they will be greeted in the halls of Congress by sycophantic Big Coal-bankrolled politicians, from “million-dollar Big Coal-lobby-money- man” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) from the Appalachian states.
Today’s rally continues the Big Coal Gone Wild episodes of the now debunked Faces of Coal.
In truth, the extremists trolling through the halls of Congress are not concerned about the “American miners.” You won’t hear anyone defending coal miners in 25 other states today. With a classic divide and conquer strategy, Big Coal lobbyists are fomenting fear and exaggerating potential jobs loss from halting human rights-violating mountaintop removal operations, as outside corporate coal interests in Appalachia circle their wagons in front of our nation’s Capitol.
More importantly, Big Coal lobbyists are desperate to keep the media and the general American public from learning that heavily mechanized strip-mining operations, which account for most of our coal today, have wiped out more than 60 percent of the Appalachian coal jobs in the last 25 years–at least 10-15 times more job loss than any potential environmental regulations. By placing a stranglehold on any economic diversity in the coalfields, strip-mining operations have also led to the highest unemployment and poverty rates; a West Virginia University study last year pointed out that “coal mining costs Appalachians five times more in early deaths as the industry provides to the region in jobs.”
To Read the Rest of the Article
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Kentucky Historical Society to Show “Stranger with a Camera,” Host Filmmaker Elizabeth Barret (April 27)
KHS to Show “Stranger with a Camera,” Host Filmmaker Elizabeth Barret
Date : Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Issued By : Kentucky Historical Society
Summary : The Kentucky Historical Society (KHS) film series will show "Stranger with a Camera" at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 13 at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort. Elizabeth Barret, the director of the documentary, will be in attendance at the showing.
Here is an earlier post I wrote about this documentary
Stranger With a Camera
Directed by Elizabeth Barret
Appalshop Films, 2000.
Highly recommended for its narrative structure and its meditation on media representation through the highly charged murder of a documentary filmmaker while he was filming in Appalachia. Barret, a native of the Appalachia region of Eastern Kentucky, self-reflectively attempts to represent what led up to the murder while at the same time understanding the impossibility of fully understanding these events. This is a great example of autoethnography in the Appalshop community-based filmmaking tradition. It led this reviewer to ponder what is the responsibility of the media (and researchers, governments, NGos, etc...) in representing cultures/communities.
Unfortunately it isn't available online or in most video stores, so trek on over to your nearby university or public library and see if they have a copy (if not request that they get one--most libraries are actually very cool about acquiring materials for patrons).
ITVS Site for the Documentary
PBS Site for the Documentary and Further Resources
NPR Interview with Elizabeth Barret
Austin Chronicle Review/Interview
The Media Interrogated in Stranger With a Camera
Appalshop site for the Documentary
Appalshop Films
Comparison of Blair Witch and Stranger with a Camera? (very good analysis)
Califronia Newsreel Review
INTERPRETING FILM: MEANING AND REPRESENTATION, CULTURE AND POLITICS, THE TRUMAN SHOW AND STRANGER WITH A CAMERA
Date : Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Issued By : Kentucky Historical Society
Summary : The Kentucky Historical Society (KHS) film series will show "Stranger with a Camera" at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 13 at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort. Elizabeth Barret, the director of the documentary, will be in attendance at the showing.
Here is an earlier post I wrote about this documentary
Stranger With a Camera
Directed by Elizabeth Barret
Appalshop Films, 2000.
Highly recommended for its narrative structure and its meditation on media representation through the highly charged murder of a documentary filmmaker while he was filming in Appalachia. Barret, a native of the Appalachia region of Eastern Kentucky, self-reflectively attempts to represent what led up to the murder while at the same time understanding the impossibility of fully understanding these events. This is a great example of autoethnography in the Appalshop community-based filmmaking tradition. It led this reviewer to ponder what is the responsibility of the media (and researchers, governments, NGos, etc...) in representing cultures/communities.
Unfortunately it isn't available online or in most video stores, so trek on over to your nearby university or public library and see if they have a copy (if not request that they get one--most libraries are actually very cool about acquiring materials for patrons).
ITVS Site for the Documentary
PBS Site for the Documentary and Further Resources
NPR Interview with Elizabeth Barret
Austin Chronicle Review/Interview
The Media Interrogated in Stranger With a Camera
Appalshop site for the Documentary
Appalshop Films
Comparison of Blair Witch and Stranger with a Camera? (very good analysis)
Califronia Newsreel Review
INTERPRETING FILM: MEANING AND REPRESENTATION, CULTURE AND POLITICS, THE TRUMAN SHOW AND STRANGER WITH A CAMERA
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Andy Kroll: JP Morgan’s War on Nature
JPMorgan’s War on Nature: How the Wall Street darling underwrites environmental Armageddon.
by Andy Kroll
Mother Jones
Unlike virtually all of its competitors, JPMorgan Chase steeled itself early for the collapse of the subprime market and emerged from the rubble of the global financial meltdown with both its balance sheet and reputation intact. But the storied firm stands alone among its Wall Street rivals in another area, too. JPMorgan backstops one of the most destructive mining practices in the world: mountaintop removal coal mining. And it continues to do so even as other major banks have cut ties to this practice.
"Chase is the single largest remaining player in this game," says Scott Edwards, advocacy director for the Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental advocacy group comprised of lawyers, scientists, and activists, among others. "They just absolutely refuse to take responsibility for their role in this absolutely devastating industry."
Mountaintop removal (MTR) mining, focused in Appalachian states like West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, involves deforesting huge swaths of land and blasting the summits off of mountains to expose the black veins of coal underneath. The waste and rubble from the demolition is then dumped into nearby rivers and streams, burying local water sources in toxic byproducts, choking off tributaries that feed into larger rivers, and wiping out plants and wildlife, according to numerous scientific studies. Despite the mining industry's claims, there are no successful ways to mitigate the effects of MTR, according to Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. The effects on the nearby environment, she says, are long lasting and often irreversible.
The impact of MTR mining is global, too. When mining companies deforest a mountaintop before demolition, they engage in a practice that overall contributes 25 to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions each year. Between 1992 and 2012, MTR will have leveled 7 percent of Appalachian forests in areas studied by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Nonetheless, over the past 17 years, JPMorgan Chase has helped to underwrite nearly 20 bond or loan deals, worth a combined $8.5 trillion, for some of the biggest players in the MTR mining business, according to data from Bloomberg. Other large banks have either halted financing companies engaging in the practice outright or signaled their intent to do so. In December 2008, for instance, Bank of America publicly announced plans to "phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal." Wells Fargo has cut ties with coal giant Massey Energy. And a Credit Suisse official says the bank has a "global mining policy" that ensures "we explicitly do not finance the extraction of coal in a mountaintop removal setting." But JPMorgan continues to back the practice.
By underwriting MTR, JPMorgan ties itself to some of the nation's biggest polluters. Take Massey Energy, which leads the nation in MTR mining. In 2008, the company extracted more than 21 million tons of coal using mountaintop removal mining, according to opensourcecoal.org, an online database for coal production statistics. That same year, JPMorgan acted as lead manager on a $690 million bond offering by Massey, according to financial records.
Over the past decade, Massey has mined nearly 190 million tons of coal in Appalachia using mountaintop removal, according to opensourcecoal.org—and it has essentially disregarded the law and surrounding landscape to do so. Between 2000 and 2006, Massey violated the Clean Water Act more than 4,500 times by dumping sediment and leftover mining waste into rivers in Kentucky and West Virginia, the EPA said in 2008. (Environmental groups say the EPA's tally is a lowball figure; they estimate that the true number of violations is more than 12,000.) As a result of these breaches of the law, the company agreed to pay the EPA a $20 million settlement.
To Read the Rest of the Article
by Andy Kroll
Mother Jones
Unlike virtually all of its competitors, JPMorgan Chase steeled itself early for the collapse of the subprime market and emerged from the rubble of the global financial meltdown with both its balance sheet and reputation intact. But the storied firm stands alone among its Wall Street rivals in another area, too. JPMorgan backstops one of the most destructive mining practices in the world: mountaintop removal coal mining. And it continues to do so even as other major banks have cut ties to this practice.
"Chase is the single largest remaining player in this game," says Scott Edwards, advocacy director for the Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental advocacy group comprised of lawyers, scientists, and activists, among others. "They just absolutely refuse to take responsibility for their role in this absolutely devastating industry."
Mountaintop removal (MTR) mining, focused in Appalachian states like West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, involves deforesting huge swaths of land and blasting the summits off of mountains to expose the black veins of coal underneath. The waste and rubble from the demolition is then dumped into nearby rivers and streams, burying local water sources in toxic byproducts, choking off tributaries that feed into larger rivers, and wiping out plants and wildlife, according to numerous scientific studies. Despite the mining industry's claims, there are no successful ways to mitigate the effects of MTR, according to Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. The effects on the nearby environment, she says, are long lasting and often irreversible.
The impact of MTR mining is global, too. When mining companies deforest a mountaintop before demolition, they engage in a practice that overall contributes 25 to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions each year. Between 1992 and 2012, MTR will have leveled 7 percent of Appalachian forests in areas studied by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Nonetheless, over the past 17 years, JPMorgan Chase has helped to underwrite nearly 20 bond or loan deals, worth a combined $8.5 trillion, for some of the biggest players in the MTR mining business, according to data from Bloomberg. Other large banks have either halted financing companies engaging in the practice outright or signaled their intent to do so. In December 2008, for instance, Bank of America publicly announced plans to "phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal." Wells Fargo has cut ties with coal giant Massey Energy. And a Credit Suisse official says the bank has a "global mining policy" that ensures "we explicitly do not finance the extraction of coal in a mountaintop removal setting." But JPMorgan continues to back the practice.
By underwriting MTR, JPMorgan ties itself to some of the nation's biggest polluters. Take Massey Energy, which leads the nation in MTR mining. In 2008, the company extracted more than 21 million tons of coal using mountaintop removal mining, according to opensourcecoal.org, an online database for coal production statistics. That same year, JPMorgan acted as lead manager on a $690 million bond offering by Massey, according to financial records.
Over the past decade, Massey has mined nearly 190 million tons of coal in Appalachia using mountaintop removal, according to opensourcecoal.org—and it has essentially disregarded the law and surrounding landscape to do so. Between 2000 and 2006, Massey violated the Clean Water Act more than 4,500 times by dumping sediment and leftover mining waste into rivers in Kentucky and West Virginia, the EPA said in 2008. (Environmental groups say the EPA's tally is a lowball figure; they estimate that the true number of violations is more than 12,000.) As a result of these breaches of the law, the company agreed to pay the EPA a $20 million settlement.
To Read the Rest of the Article
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Revolution By the Book: Fighting for mountain justice in Appalachia
(Courtesy of Laura W.)
Fighting for mountain justice in Appalachia
By kate
Revolution By the Book
Before dawn on Thursday, Jan. 21, a dozen heavily laden activists headed for the edge of a strip mine site on Coal River Mountain, in southern West Virginia. The hikers approached three trees, oak and poplar, previously selected by scouts as suitable in several ways: The trees were not far apart, about 50 or 60 feet between them. Each tree was suitable for installing a person on a platform high enough up to make removal difficult. They were in undeveloped terrain where it would be hard for mine workers to bring in heavy equipment. And they were close enough to mining activities to prevent blasting if the trees were occupied.
Working quickly, the three prospective tree sitters and their supporters hoisted plywood platforms, tarps, food, water, radios, batteries, and other essentials up into the trees. Finally, the sitters—Eric Blevins, Amber Nitchman, David Aaron Smith (also known as Planet)—settled on their platforms and pulled up their ropes.
Setting up traverse lines—ropes that would enable the sitters to move themselves and their supplies from one tree to another—was about the only thing that did not go as intended. Too many branches were in the way for lines to be set between the trees, especially in the dark, so they would have to do without. The sitters had planned to share certain supplies: They had only two cellphones and one battery-to-phone charger between them, for example. If one sitter came down early, he or she wouldn’t be able to pass unused supplies to the others. Still, each of the sitters had at least a communications radio, spare batteries, and enough food and water for a week or more. Eric, who had the cellphone charger, would be the primary contact with the outside world. Amber would minimize use of her cellphone, and the three of them would communicate as needed by radio. They would make do.
Two supporters remained on the ground by the trees. Several others would hide in the woods, too far away to see the sitters but close enough for radio contact: If the sitters said they were in danger, these off-site supporters would run to their aid. Others who helped set up the sit left and began a long hike back toward base camp, several miles away, at the headquarters for Climate Ground Zero (CGZ).
CGZ supports the use of nonviolent civil disobedience by activists seeking to end mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining and similar sorts of large-scale strip mining in Appalachia. In 2009, anti-MTR activists affiliated with the CGZ and Mountain Justice campaigns launched 18 civil-disobedience actions in West Virginia’s coalfields, incurring more than 130 arrests. Some of those actions, like this tree sit, were on mine sites; others took place at the front gates of mine facilities or in the offices of government officials. Most took place in or near the Coal River valley, and many focused on Coal River Mountain.
Coal River Mountain is the last intact mountain bordering the valley, with thousands of acres of continuous forest and healthy streams. It has excellent potential for a large-scale wind farm that would produce more jobs and higher local earnings and tax revenues than would strip-mining the site. In addition, a wind farm would leave nearly all of the mountain’s forest intact, allowing local people to continue to hunt and forage there, as they have done for generations. All those benefits could be sustained as long as the wind blows. MTR operations would end on the mountain in 15 years or so, leaving a flattened, treeless landscape with much-reduced wind potential and insufficient stability for installing large turbines.
Massey Energy, whose subsidiaries run most of the strip mines near Coal River valley, has long planned to strip-mine some 6,600 acres of this mountain, divided into four contiguous permit areas with a total of 18 proposed “valley fills,” where miners would dump rubble from mining nearby. Massey has not yet obtained permits for any of those valley fills. Instead, Massey’s subsidiary Marfork has permission to dump rubble from the Bee Tree permit area around the edge of the adjacent Brushy Fork sludge pond.
Such mining at the Bee Tree site would require blasting quite close to the huge pond, first for building a haul road then for the mining itself. The pond covers hundreds of acres, is held back by an earthen dam 900 feet high, is permitted to hold up to 9 billion of gallons of sludge (liquid waste from processing coal), and is located above a honeycomb of old underground mines. Blasting nearby thus runs the risk of causing a catastrophic flood by cracking the pond’s floor. That is exactly what happened a decade ago at another Massey site, in Inez, KY, where more than 300 million gallons of sludge spilled into tributaries of the Ohio River—30 times more waste than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. But Brushy Fork is a much bigger pond than the one at Inez, and its failure could result in a much bigger catastrophe: Massey’s own disaster contingency plan, required of it after the Inez spill, supposes a wall of sludge 40 feet high moving down the Coal River valley, mile after mile after mile.
To Read the Rest of the Post
Fighting for mountain justice in Appalachia
By kate
Revolution By the Book
Before dawn on Thursday, Jan. 21, a dozen heavily laden activists headed for the edge of a strip mine site on Coal River Mountain, in southern West Virginia. The hikers approached three trees, oak and poplar, previously selected by scouts as suitable in several ways: The trees were not far apart, about 50 or 60 feet between them. Each tree was suitable for installing a person on a platform high enough up to make removal difficult. They were in undeveloped terrain where it would be hard for mine workers to bring in heavy equipment. And they were close enough to mining activities to prevent blasting if the trees were occupied.
Working quickly, the three prospective tree sitters and their supporters hoisted plywood platforms, tarps, food, water, radios, batteries, and other essentials up into the trees. Finally, the sitters—Eric Blevins, Amber Nitchman, David Aaron Smith (also known as Planet)—settled on their platforms and pulled up their ropes.
Setting up traverse lines—ropes that would enable the sitters to move themselves and their supplies from one tree to another—was about the only thing that did not go as intended. Too many branches were in the way for lines to be set between the trees, especially in the dark, so they would have to do without. The sitters had planned to share certain supplies: They had only two cellphones and one battery-to-phone charger between them, for example. If one sitter came down early, he or she wouldn’t be able to pass unused supplies to the others. Still, each of the sitters had at least a communications radio, spare batteries, and enough food and water for a week or more. Eric, who had the cellphone charger, would be the primary contact with the outside world. Amber would minimize use of her cellphone, and the three of them would communicate as needed by radio. They would make do.
Two supporters remained on the ground by the trees. Several others would hide in the woods, too far away to see the sitters but close enough for radio contact: If the sitters said they were in danger, these off-site supporters would run to their aid. Others who helped set up the sit left and began a long hike back toward base camp, several miles away, at the headquarters for Climate Ground Zero (CGZ).
CGZ supports the use of nonviolent civil disobedience by activists seeking to end mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining and similar sorts of large-scale strip mining in Appalachia. In 2009, anti-MTR activists affiliated with the CGZ and Mountain Justice campaigns launched 18 civil-disobedience actions in West Virginia’s coalfields, incurring more than 130 arrests. Some of those actions, like this tree sit, were on mine sites; others took place at the front gates of mine facilities or in the offices of government officials. Most took place in or near the Coal River valley, and many focused on Coal River Mountain.
Coal River Mountain is the last intact mountain bordering the valley, with thousands of acres of continuous forest and healthy streams. It has excellent potential for a large-scale wind farm that would produce more jobs and higher local earnings and tax revenues than would strip-mining the site. In addition, a wind farm would leave nearly all of the mountain’s forest intact, allowing local people to continue to hunt and forage there, as they have done for generations. All those benefits could be sustained as long as the wind blows. MTR operations would end on the mountain in 15 years or so, leaving a flattened, treeless landscape with much-reduced wind potential and insufficient stability for installing large turbines.
Massey Energy, whose subsidiaries run most of the strip mines near Coal River valley, has long planned to strip-mine some 6,600 acres of this mountain, divided into four contiguous permit areas with a total of 18 proposed “valley fills,” where miners would dump rubble from mining nearby. Massey has not yet obtained permits for any of those valley fills. Instead, Massey’s subsidiary Marfork has permission to dump rubble from the Bee Tree permit area around the edge of the adjacent Brushy Fork sludge pond.
Such mining at the Bee Tree site would require blasting quite close to the huge pond, first for building a haul road then for the mining itself. The pond covers hundreds of acres, is held back by an earthen dam 900 feet high, is permitted to hold up to 9 billion of gallons of sludge (liquid waste from processing coal), and is located above a honeycomb of old underground mines. Blasting nearby thus runs the risk of causing a catastrophic flood by cracking the pond’s floor. That is exactly what happened a decade ago at another Massey site, in Inez, KY, where more than 300 million gallons of sludge spilled into tributaries of the Ohio River—30 times more waste than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. But Brushy Fork is a much bigger pond than the one at Inez, and its failure could result in a much bigger catastrophe: Massey’s own disaster contingency plan, required of it after the Inez spill, supposes a wall of sludge 40 feet high moving down the Coal River valley, mile after mile after mile.
To Read the Rest of the Post
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)