How Much Tragedy Will It Take?
The number of fatalities from the blast occurring yesterday at the Richmond-based Massey Energy’s West Virginia coal mine has risen to 25 with at least 4 men still unaccounted for. Indeed very tragic for West Virginia.
It’s also a reminder that coal mining is an inherently dangerous occupation and an industry wrought with greed and manipulation.
“Monday’s explosion is the latest in a string of problems for Richmond, Virginia-based Massey Energy, which operates 44 underground and surface mines. It controls 2.2 billion tons of coal reserves in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee”, reports CNN. Massey Energy is one of the five biggest coal producers in the nation.
Yet, as Blue Virginia points out, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli “is not only NOT cracking down on Massey, he “is actually working with Massey Energy on his lawsuit against the EPA”. “Massey hearts Virginia Republicans, having donated $61,000 to Virginia Republicans in 2009 and $0 to the Dems, not to mention $441,463 to Virginia Republicans since 1997 (just $8,250 to Democrats), including $40,000 to Bob McDonnell for Governor and $10,000 to Ken Cuccinelli for Attorney General”.
Virginia’s love affair with coal runs very, very deep and it’s very powerful. There is no sign that the affair won’t deepen over the next 3.5 years while Republicans control Virginia’s legislature.
Virginia needs to march ASAP down the path towards phasing out the whole dirty business of anything associated with coal. New clean energy facilities need to be built in these areas. Federal legislation needs to crack down hard on polluters. Electricity consumers must demand more renewable energy sources finding its way into homes.
Out of this horrible tragedy, I hope folks start to see the light that we need to abandon coal-fired generation of electricity and do so despite McDonnell, Cuccinelli, Massey, Dominion, etc., etc. Let’s kick the coal habit!
(Photo credit: The Associated Press)
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April 6th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Over the weekend I learned that a classmate of mind was killed while trimming shrubs. Hundreds die each year from being electrocuted while trimming shrubs. using your reasoning, this proves that we should abandon tree trimming altogether…
With every task there are some risks. Those risks can be mitigated through safety and environmental awareness. As with tree surgery, mining coal has risks. Of course, many of the mining risks can be eliminated by using open-pit techniques, but there has been a great deal of opposition to that method. So, to appease the Sierra Club and similar opponents, mining companies are still using the more risky, burrowing method.
While those miners could have still been killed in various accidents in an open pit (run over by trucks, rock slides, meteor impact,etc.) those risks are much lower than crawling around in a mine shaft.
We will need coal based energy for the foreseeable future, so we should go about mining that resource in as safe a manner as possible, and we must use the coal in ways that minimize its environmental impact, such as with fluidized bed or pulverized dust processes. For now, coal is an integral part of our nation’s energy independence plan.
While big oil and coal are often seen as the enemy of our citizens, through sound legislative policy, those leviathan corporate organizations can be directed to use their resources so as to minimize the environmental impact, and also to use their current, record profits to plow billions into clean energy alternatives, such as wind, geothermal, solar, nuclear and tidal generation of energy.
The best way that we can honor those miners, would be to continue to progress toward energy independence with an infrastructure that will phase out the use of non-renewable sources of energy. This generation should take on the goal of passing along to our children an energy independent America with a power generation infrastructure built on a diverse collection of clean energy sources. Right now, the use of coal is a bridge to that future.
April 6th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Well, if we are going to introduce the welfare of coal miners into the argument then perhaps we should listen to the opinion of the miners. I have been left with the impression that people in these areas are grateful for the jobs coal mining provides because without the mines, there would be few good paying jobs available. Safety is an issue, and they do not want an environment where the coal mining industry is allowed to force them to work under unsafe conditions. However they are not going to side with those who want to run the coal mining companies out of business.
I guess coal miners are kind of like truckers. The trucking safety advocacy groups (funded by the railroads) try to claim they have the best interests of the truckers in mind as they argue their point of view. Do they refer to polls which would prove truckers are demanding their actions or even mildly in favor of them? Nope, because such polls would prove the opposite. But still they argue in their agenda how every big truck is a sweat shop on wheels. Meanwhile they ignore the issues truckers are concerned about, like delays at the shipping and loading docks, while concentrating only on the issues that will further the interests of those that fund them.
April 6th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
The West Virginia Coal Industry provides about 30,000 direct jobs in WV, including miners, mine contractors, coal preparation plant employees and mine supply companies.
Taxes paid by the coal industry and by utility companies that make electricity using West Virginia coal account for two-thirds, or over 60% of business taxes paid in WV.
The average annual salary miners make is $65,000.
Coal is responsible for more than $3.5 billion annually in the gross WV state product.
I don’t foresee any immediate movement by WV to embrace your (Eileen) recommendations.