Kentucky Lieutenant Governor Daniel Mongiardo -

“A lot of people look at mountain top removal as a negative, but I see it as a positive,” said Mongiardo. “We need to stop apologizing for coal. We don’t want to defend mountain top removal, but I want us to promote mountain top removal, because we need flat land. We can not have economic expansion without places to do things and part of mountain top removal is for places like hospitals, airports and different type of merchants. Source

I really believe this is the first time I have heard someone in government say outright that mountaintop removal is a positive. Usually they promote mountaintop removal by promoting coal. To say mountaintop removal is a positive is to say, blowing up mountains, burying streams, burning forests, polluting drinking water, stealing land, taking advantage of residents all are positives. Leave it to someone in government to try and shovel that crap.

I’ve talked about future economic expansion/development before. I find it an absolutely ridiculous notion to try and justify MTR by claiming future economic development of mountaintop removal sites. Most of these reclaimed sites, 26 hard miles south of nowhere, lack one very important ingredient, access to basic infrastructure in the form of roads, water, and sewer. How can you promote economic development without any plan to carry it forth except for leveling the land? That would be like going to New York, clearing an entire city block for future development only to find out you have enough infrastructure in place to support a hot dog stand on one corner.

To promote MTR for future economic development is the same thing as promoting clean coal. It is only the idea the coal lobby has to sell in order to keep raking in the profits.

Kayford Mountain

Currently, unknown site location. As seen from the head of Rock Creek looking into the Pax area.

This past weekend, my wife and I attended her family reunion in Wyoming County.  We decided to drive down through Boone County rather than going by interstate since we weren’t in a terrible rush.  It had been a few months since we had been through Boone County and I must say, things have changed…and not for the better. 

One of the most stark changes was on the ridges around the little towns of Bim & Bob White.  I remember the last time we drove through there, there were these two little mountain peaks that were both about the same size and they loomed rather impressively over the town of Bob White.  Well on this trip, I looked for the mountain peaks but there was only one of them…that’s right, one of them had been destroyed and in its place was a little flat, barren spot and wide-open sky.  Being who I am I looked at the creek below there and just on visual inspection, it looks horrible.  The last time we drove down through here, we saw people fishing in the creek, I doubt that there is any fish alive in this creek now.  As we drove on up around the bend, we saw a huge MTR site in full operation, I’ve no doubt it is only a matter of time before the 2nd little mountain peak is laid low.

What impresses me the most is the people who live in Bim & Bob White are able to continue to live their daily lives there, I don’t know that I could live that close to all that crap, knowing what goes on there and the dangers their operations posed to me, and also knowing full well that your government doesn’t care what you think.  I applaud them for standing and fighting for their homes, it definitely takes a special kind of person to be able to do that.

I was really shocked to see how quickly a mountain can be destroyed.  I was aware that MTR activities had increased over the past few months but I suppose I didn’t fully understand the extent of the greed of man when coal is $120 a ton.

On the way back to Charleston, we decided to drive down through Coal River to see all of the changes that were sure to have happened there. We had hoped we’d see Pauline and Mary out in their yards so we could stop and see them again, but we didn’t see any sign of them when we went through Sylvester.  It had been a couple of years since we traveled that road, and I’ll just say this, if a person wants to see the real costs of MTR, just take a drive through Boone County, WV. 

I can’t believe that we, as a society, continue to allow this to occur!

I absolutely hate it. I grew up roaming the same mountains that I could now go to jail for being even within photo taking distance of. That is beyond insane. I have a question. How in the world did we allow an industry to own and destroy the heart of Appalachia? Most would say because we needed a job. Some would say to feed their family which means you needed the job. So let’s see - we will give the coal industry the mountains basically because that is all we have to give and they give us poor mountain folk a job in return.  On top of that, when the job runs out in x amount of years the coal industry gets to keep the mountains, in a manner of speaking. I think that about sums it up. You’ll pardon me if I think we’re getting screwed. Coal mining jobs have a short lifespan, the mountains do not. I can tell you this, we do not need mountaintop removal in order to feed our families. We can do better.

I had a commenter the other day say something about me having a grudge against Massey Energy. I actually turned down a job with Massey as an electrician because I didn’t want to be a part of mountaintop removal. I don’t have a grudge against Massey directly. I do, however, have a grudge against those who facilitate mountaintop removal for short term gain. That’s all MTR is, a short term gain. We blow up a mountain, burn the coal, turn on our lights, feed the family and the we will get up and do it again tomorrow because everything from yesterday is gone, the money, the electricity, and the mountains

There used to not be boundaries in the mountains. Even private landowners are quick to give you permission to cross their property. Now you can ride an ATV a short distance, in some places, in any direction and all of the sudden you are trespassing and could go to jail for it. That invisible boundary marks the area we traded to turn on the lights and feed our families last night.

Hell, I love being out in the mountains. I thought that made me a hillbilly but apparently it makes me an environmentalist. That’s neither here nor there, but since I love to be in the mountains I see how much is lost for the short term gain of a select few. We are letting the coal industry take everything that has sustained us for forever and a day, so we can go to Burger King for a cheeseburger. Not literally, but it doesn’t really matter because it’s all going to be gone tomorrow, the money, the electricity, and the mountains.

I’m going to tell you what I think. If a landowner does not want to sell to the coal industry then that should be the end of story. Also, there should be a buffer zone around the property owners boundary to prevent the industry from destroying private property.

There has been a lot of talk about trespassing lately. One example of trespassing is when the coal industry’s destruction reaches fifty feet or more inside the boundaries of a private landowner.

These cracks in the ground, found anywhere else in the coalfield mountains, would be called mine breaks. Mine breaks occur usually right on top of a mountain. They are caused by either the collapsing ceiling in an abandoned mine or the coal industry backing out of a mine and taking the roof supporting coal with them. In either case it causes the mountain to settle. When the mountain settles it sometimes opens these cracks and we call them mine breaks.

Anyway, that is not what those pictures are. I’m standing on Larry’s property with the MTR site about 30 feet behind me. It was a nearby explosion that first broke this piece of ground and it has been numerous subsequent explosions causing the broken pieces to separate. That is what you call trespassing.

And this…

The tree covered hill in the distance still has all of it’s trees because of Larry’s family cemetery which is also located there. The coal industry mined right up to the boundary. Larry has to have permission from the coal industry to visit his family cemetery. There is just so much wrong with that, it is difficult to even contemplate.

When I go to Kayford Mountain I can’t help but think of it as the front line.

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Expect more examples of trespassing in the near future.

you know where you can go, I work there and thats how i feed my famley. Ya ban coal mining let the bastards freeze in the dark,when you flip on a light switch or turn your a/c on it comes from COAL! ban mining and west virgina will become a sad place to live, a ghost town! IDIOT.

As I said in a recent comment to this blog, I would love to just once here a legitimate argument in favor of mountaintop removal. This particular comment actually makes no sense whatsoever. When presenting an argument against the practice, without fail this is the type of response received from proponents of MTR.

This commenter is talking about feeding his famley all the while going to work on a jobsite that is trying its level best to take everything from multiple families. I don’t have any sympathy for him and I couldn’t care less about his job.

Southern West Virginia is already becoming a sad place to live and it is being caused by mountaintop removal coal mining. For every one person that benefits from the destructive practice there are at least twenty that have to deal with the negative impacts. (Twenty is a very conservative number, I’m quite sure the ratio is a lot higher.)

The point is, it’s simply not worth it.

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I can’t stop thinking about trespassing in the Appalachian Mountains on such a grand scale. I hear all the time the State of WV promoting tourism. Part of that tourism comes from hiking and four wheeling in the mountains. People come to West Virginia to be in the mountains, plain and simple. That is, as long as the State can keep them out of the southern part of the state. How can you ever promote tourism in the southern part of WV if you are trespassing in the mountains? I’ve been accused of trespassing on finished valley fills. They are finished aren’t they? They have been reclaimed haven’t they? Does the reclamation of these mine sites not include restoring them to the local residents? You know - the people who have hiked and enjoyed the mountains for generations.

Not only are we losing the mountains in a literal sense we are also losing the ability to even be in the mountains. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that pisses me off. I’ve hunted and gensenged these mountains since first strolling through them with both my grandfathers way back when. We are mountaineers, we always have been and we always will be. Montani Semper Liberi, mountaineers are always free. In the coalfields of southern West Virginia we have already taken the free out of our State Motto and we are in the process of taking out the mountain and all who reside on and around it. As far as I am concerned, I am still a mountaineer and the coal industry is in my house. I will denounce mountaintop removal and the way the coal industry treats residents with my last dying breath if need be.

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I read a really good article over on Albert’s blog and it got me thinking about a couple of things, global warming and clean coal. They don’t really have anything to do with Albert’s article directly. It was just that his article was very thought provoking and my mind went to the two topics by itself.

I don’t really know what I believe about global warming. With myself, what I believe is a mute point. If I have even a reasonable doubt one way or the other, that is enough for concern. I’ve got scientists in one hand telling me global warming is real and I have politicians and lobbyist in the other telling me global warming is not real. Who is the logical group to believe? I personally won’t have to worry too much about global warming because I’ll most likely be gone from here before it is believed and or evident. But, I have children and grandchildren living in the Coal River Valley that will not only have to adjust severely to a changing climate, in their lifetime, but will also have to deal with the remnants of the coal industry, the bullshit left behind when the industry leaves and have the mountains destroyed in the process. I think if you live in the coalfields and you have a child or grandchild you should look them in the eyes right now and apologize for letting the nonsense continue then go out and do something about it.

Clean coal, it makes my stomach turn just putting those two words together.

If you believe in clean coal I have a few suggestions for you. Visit a mountaintop removal site, or a slurry impoundment / slurry injection site, or a community ravaged by mountaintop removal, or an ash dump, or a coal-fired power plant. Please, when you visit these places in person or via the internet I would love for you to point out all of the clean in coal. Personally, I just can’t see it.

There is no such thing as clean coal.

“Nope….   what?”

“I’m going to sneak up onto an MTR site and steal all their explosives and throw them in a desert…. then they won’t be able to blow up any more of our mountains.”

“Hmmm…” I said, thinking that wasn’t such a bad idea.

Then he added, “And then I am going to arrest the people doing MTR, because I think they are criminals.”

“Mommy thinks they are criminals, too.”

And that is exactly what they are.  Stealing land, resources, water, and a way of life that has sustained mountain people for generations.  The conversation reminded me of the song that says, ‘Teach your children well…’    I can only hope that the next generation can see that business and profit without morality is evil.  And that we can’t destroy the very thing  we are dependant on for survival…   the earth.

Hopefully they will be better stewards of the earth’s gifts than we have been. Let’s continue to educate, teach, and fight!

When I visit the different mountaintop removal sites, especially for the first time, my emotions are from one end of the spectrum to the other. I’m always anxious to get photos of the site but at the same time I am first dreading and then disgusted by what I see.

A while back Walker/Cat Machinery had a propaganda video which stated life is thriving on mountaintop removal sites. I beg to differ. On this valley fill, birds were not even present.

The scrub brush growing alongside the spillway is Black Locust. It is considered an invasive species.

Black locust has nitrogen-fixing bacteria on its root system; for this reason it can grow on poor soils and is an early colonizer of disturbed areas. From Wikipedia

Valley fills give new meaning to poor soils. In some cases even the hydroseed has a problem growing on a fill. Hydroseed is a mixture of non-native grass seed and fertilizer. It has been termed grass seed on steroids because of it’s ability to grow on nearly anything.

On one of the steps of the fill we came across 4 Fuji apple trees. There is only one reason you will find apple trees planted by the coal company on the side of a valley fill and that is to try and get wildlife back on the fill. I have no doubt that further down the road if the trees were to survive and if they did manage to draw deer onto the fill the coal industry would make a helluva propaganda video showing the deer on the fill conveniently leaving out the fact they were there because of the apple trees. That doesn’t really matter in this case because two of the four trees are already dead and the other two are close to it.

Maybe the coal industry would consider doing a commercial about ticks on valley fills because there were quite a few of those. We walked through one area and Mountainsaver had 14 ticks on his pants. We were knocking them off of us the entire trip up the side of the fill. If I was a deer I would avoid this area for that reason alone. I believe the coal industry has a lot in common with the ticks, both are parasites.

Regardless of the company name on the front gate, mountaintop removal is what it is. And what it is is complete destruction. The term mountaintop removal doesn’t even properly convey the destruction on most sites. This site involves multiple mountains and numerous valleys.

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