QUESTION: Why is mountaintop removal mining like abortion? Even asking that question has probably raised the ire of those reading this column.
That's understandable.
The answer is that there is no middle ground on either issue. There is no room for compromise. Even those who pray for middle ground can't seem to find any way to make both sides happy.
Last week's demonstrations at a Massey strip mining site in Raleigh County were the latest in a long series of outbursts over the damage that the practice of mountaintop removal does to West Virginia, which carries the ironic nickname "the mountain state."
It was clear from what I saw on TV news that fear was palpable at the demonstration.
Those who are fighting mountaintop removal mining fear what will become of us if the practice continues to its ultimate conclusion and much, if not most, of West Virginia is leveled.
There was also fear in the eyes of the Massey employees and their families who met the protesters. They fear for their jobs and their livelihoods. That fear translates into anger and the looks on some of their faces scare me.
The face-off between these two groups on a road in Raleigh County proves there is no middle ground, nor will there ever be.
Those who take the coal off the mountaintops will tolerate a little regulation from the state and federal governments, but they won't abide talk of outlawing the practice. And those who oppose mountaintop removal won't tolerate anything short of outlawing the practice.
There are a few who try to declare a compromise, but it will never work.
Gov. Joe Manchin tried to straddle the issue last week when he said he is as much an environmentalist as anyone else, but neither is he an obstructionist.
Well, Joe, calling yourself an environmentalist doesn't make you one, and calling those who protested last week obstructionists doesn't make them obstructionists.
Sadly, West Virginia has an abundance of coal. And I say "sadly" because we have an abundance of the dirtiest and most controversial fuel known to man. That has sealed our fate forever.
If this state had no coal, our history would have been much different and our future less chaotic. But we have it and we must deal with it.
I come down on the side of those who want the practice of mountaintop removal mining halted. But unlike Manchin, I do not believe I am as much of an environmentalist as anyone else.
If I were, I would have sat down in the road and gotten arrested last week along with Darryl Hannah, Ken Hechler and two dozen more.
And if I were one of those who had a job stripping coal off mountaintops, I probably would have stood stone-faced before the demonstrators and defied them the way Massey employees did last week.
Coal. It's the state's salvation and the state's sorrow.
How ironic. And how sad.
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