I'm not saying I'm for or against....but I'm a firm believer in hearing both sides... http://www.mountaintopmining.com/
Thanks for giving the mine owners' point of view, but I'm pretty sure the original video I posted was not composed of special effects. Those were real people describing their real experience, and I did not see any hysteria in that video. We need to be looking at conservation and at renewable energy sources for the future.
Yes we need to looking at renewable energy sources but we also should be using the ones that are ready to be used. I do not really think that blowing the top of a mountain is the best way to that, but if people are just stating that we need not use what we already have is kinda like not turning on your lights and fussing 'cuz it's dark.
Yeah...environmental activists and movie stars...they know bunches more about the processes involved with this type of mining than the ones who do it, and they have no bias either. :roll: My point is that there are pros and cons to such activities. I'm curious...did you get upset when they blasted through the mountains to put in the roads that many, perhaps including you, like to drive on when you enjoy same mountains?
The ability to build Independence High School on a "mountaintop removal mine" seems to be a bit of misdirection. If you look at the topomap of coal city you see there is not that great of an elevation gradient change in that area. The school would be at the end of the road going to the west of Coal City toward the railroad tracks. http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=37.68131&lon=-81.22732&size=l&u=4&datum=nad83&layer=DRG100
http://www.healthlink.org/coalmining55.html In 2002, after Bush became President, regulations governing mountaintop mining were loosened. It was as simple as changing a word. The rubble produced by scraping off mountaintops was defined as 'fill', not 'waste'. Fill can legally be dumped into valleys, waste cannot. The effect was immediate. In 2002 just three sites were approved in West Virginia. In 2003 the figure was 14. Critics say the rule change was the payback for massive financial support given to Bush and other Republicans by the coalmining industry. In the past six years mining firms have given $9 million to Republican candidates. James 'Buck' Harless, West Virginia's main coal baron, raised $100,000 for Bush in 2000. In 2004 he at least doubled that sum, earning the Bush Ranger title given to top fundraisers. Jack Gerard of the National Mining Association and Irl Engelhardt of mining firm Peabody earned the designation of Bush Pioneer in 2004 after giving at least $100,000 each. Bush has also brought senior mining figures into his administration, including David Lauriski, a former coalmining executive who is now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Since Lauriski took over, numerous safety and health regulations have been relaxed. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0103/p02s01-ussc.html http://www.wvrivers.org/issues/mountaintopremoval/mountaintopremoval.html
I'm not suggesting we shut down operating power plants. I am suggesting that if we need to build new power plants we should look at all the options from all perspectives. From the perspective of the power company, a coal fired plant may be the most economical, but that is because they do not have to deal with all of the costs associated with it. The environmental costs are pushed off onto the community. We will all have to deal with that, one way or another.
Hydro is renewable but from what I understand ( and I am sure there are at 3 people ready Wanye being one ) a dam would displace homes and wild life. The things that green groups are trying to protect. Wind and solar are just not effective and dear lord lets not build any more nuke power plants. I mean why would anyone want to do that?????
The sad part is there are dams in WV which could generate power but were not built to accomodate turbines. The dam built by the Corps at Summersville on the Gauley produces no power, while a private company dug a tunnel through the mountain to redirect the New through a power generation plant almost 100 years ago now. It is more sad that the land is being raped for coal while the alternatives are ignored even when there is the potential for use.
This raping of the land is a travesty, but if things like this are going to be stopped, the outrage needs to start with the locals first. This coal district is one of the most consistent democratic supporters in the nation. They've been that way forever. Nick Rahall has been the US representative for the WV coal district since 1977. He's a former employee of senator Robert Byrd. He supports mountaintop removal every chance he gets. He's a democrat. Robert Byrd has been a senator since 1959. Democrat. Jay Rockefeller has been a senator since 1985. Democrat. Byrd and Rahall both supported this ruling. They had been pushing for mountaintop removal since the Clinton administration. Clinton was helping them too. But the article was right ...it did happen after Bush became president ...along with a lot of other irrelevant things. I don't think it has as much to do with partisan politics as it does with greedy, crooked politicians. If we had mountains of coal all around Raleigh, you can be D sure that politicians on both sides would be scrambling to get some of it, no matter how much raping of the land was involved.
