Rob Perks's Blog: Saving Wildlife and Wild Places

Bo Knows Mountaintop Mining

2008-10-29T14:39:41Z

Forgive me, but I thought it worth sharing comments posted in response to my blog yesterday about Massey Energy's role in mountaintop removal coal mining.

"Rob, I can't thank you and NRDC enough for involving yourselves in the struggle to end mountain top removal. I live underneath the horrible mountain top removal mess that Massey is making above Marsh Fork Elementary

"School in the Coal River Valley of WV. We are getting bombed every day.

"The blasting is so great that my walls shake. I can feel the floor move beneath my feet. My Labrador Retriever paces back and forth and my grand kids ask me why I can't make them stop. I am fearful of boulders and mud slides coming down the mountain and killing us. This is really bad and needs to stop. What they are doing to the environment is bad enough, but what they are doing to me, my family, and my community is terrorism. I realize this may be hard to believe to some because this is America and WV is part of these United States.

"If anyone is a Viet Nam Veteran as I am, I can best describe the blasting here as like the artillery round that hit so close to you that you wondered why you were still in one piece.

"Our state environmental agency does nothing to stop this injustice. If you call to complain they tell you the coal company has seismographs and they check them to make sure they are blasting within the approved mining plan."

The man who posted these comments is Bo Webb -- a veteran, citizen, father and genuine hero in Appalachia. For years he has been leading the fight to protect his daughter and her classmates at Marsh Fork Elementary from a Massey mountaintop mining operation that directly threatens the health and safety of the school children.

Learn more and consider supporting Bo's Pennies of Promise crusade.

Thank you, Bo!!

Massey vs. Mountains

2008-10-28T19:41:55Z

"Government is the biggest risk we have to our way of life."

Those words were uttered by Don Blankenship, the notorious CEO of Massey Energy -- the nation's fourth-largest coal company and without a doubt the biggest perpetrator of so-called mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.

Good ole Don reportedly made that comment at a coal conference in West Virginia a few days ago. Not surprisingly, Mr. Blankenship blames environmental laws for regulating the way he does business -- if only that were true!

As painstakingly depicted in the excellent book, Coal River Mountian, the Massey corporation is the biggest scofflaw when it comes to fouling our lands and water with destructive mining. This rogue mining company seems hell-bent on leveling the state's "wild, wonderful" mountains as fast as possible for the sake of short-term profit derived from a black rock that generates power.

When it comes to mountains, in the Rockies they ski them; in the Adirondacks they hike them; in the Sierra Nevada's they climb them; and in the Appalachians they flatten them.

It is depressingly evident that King Coal still reigns in places like West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, as well as exercising undue influence at the national level thanks to the industry's generosity toward political candidates.

The newspaper coverage of Blankenship's comments illuminate other fascinating nuggets from him, including his skewed view that "environmentalism" is to blame for the coal industry's problems. According to the story, Blankenship also stated that..."[E]nvironmental groups pushing for more regulation need to remember that their environment involves more than trees and endangered species of bats. Also important to Americans is that they have good homes with electricity, good schools for their children and good jobs...Those aspects of their environment could crumble with the economy, if energy companies don't have the leeway they need to supply energy in a cost-effective way, provide jobs and ultimately contribute to the prosperity of the nation."

Until our nation makes the shift away from dirty, finite, unrenewable resources to readily available and affordable clean, renewable energy sources, coal will continue to supply much of our electricity. And the process for getting that coal -- strip mining -- will continue to cause massive environmental damage. But there are laws set up to regulate that mining and to mitigate the impacts to the extent possible. However, mountaintop removal mining is by far the most destructive energy exploitation imaginable. There is simply no justification for it -- and no way to remedy it without banning the practice completely. As miners have told me: They're not against coal mining...they're against that kind of coal mining.

For a glimpse of just how bad mountaintop mining is, the Huffington Post features this excellent piece by Jim DiPeso with Republicans for Environmental Protection. As Jim writes:

"Nothing could be more destructive of those conservative values than mountaintop removal coal mining. The high explosives and draglines that are gouging an alien topography onto West Virginia and neighboring states also are butchering old ways of life in the mountains."

Also, check out some of the photos I took on my recent visit to West Virginia's coal country -- otherwise known as ground zero.

Outsourcing America's Mountains for Coal

2008-10-24T17:54:42Z

With all the concerns over energy these days, much has been made of the need to wean our nation off oil as a way to lessen our dependence on imports from other countries that don't particularly like us. Imagine how shocked and outraged Americans would feel if foreign nations started buying up our remaining domestic oil reserves. No way, no how - right?

But what about coal?

Tom Zeller of The New York Times wrote a chilling piece yesterday about how officials from India went on a shopping trip last week in Appalachia to buy coal mines. India apparently is having a hard time fueling its coal-fired power plants and is seeking more stable supply. The country already is a major coal importer -- to the tune of 50 million tons per year -- and its demand is expected to steadily grow.

"It's a buyers' market," said India's coal minister. And his country is looking to spend $4 billion to acquire coal mining operations in America.

The article points out that increasing global energy demand has made the United States a major exporter of coal for the first time in years. Besides India, utilities here in the U.S. now must compete with others from countries like German, Japan and China.

This begs the question:

Isn't it horrid enough that current regulatory policies are driving the destruction of our country's oldest, culturally rich, biologically diverse mountains -- the Appalachians -- to satisfy America's insatiable energy consumption?

Now we've got foreign nations shoring up their coal supplies by investing in U.S. mining operations, which will only spur the continued push for mountaintop removal coal mining.

It's bad enough when we lay waste to our natural resources and natural heritage for the sake of short-sighted energy objectives; leveling our mountains to export our coal is even worse.

Poll: Majority of Americans Oppose Mountaintop Mining

2008-10-24T15:01:06Z

A majority of Americans (85%) oppose mountaintop removal mining, according to a new nationwide poll. Perhaps not surprising but very encouraging.

Of course, residents of Appalachia have long opposed this practice of blowing off the tops of mountains to get at thin coal seams, and then dumping the mining waste into the valleys below.

The survey, commissioned by Sierra Club, Earthjustice, and the Appalachian Center for the Economy and Environment, also shows overwhelming opposition to the Bush administration's changes to the stream buffer zone rule, which would make it legal for mining companies to bury valley streams with rock, rubble and dirt leftover from the blasting.

Besides public opinion, consider this other good news which shows that coal's future as a fossil fuel to be burned for electricity is limited.

-- Solar power plants and other renewable energy sources are real, competitive threats to the coal industry.

-- South Africa, which has had the world's largest continuously operating coal-to-liquids plant, is now planning to shut it down.

-- Germany has abandoned the coal-to-liquid fuel technology it pioneered, opting instead to focus on solar power plants.

-- Simultaneously, the worldwide solar cell industry is growing 35 percent a year, with China spending $3 billion a year.

-- California is looking into on-demand solar plants that he said could produce electricity that is price-competitive with coal-fired power plants.

All of the above has Big Coal worried, according to this recent AP story, under the ridiculous headline "Green power a threat to W.Va. coal".

The facts above are courtesy of Allan Tweddle, a consultant and a member of the West Virginia Public Energy Authority. Mr Tweddle delivered that supposedly ominous news to a stunned audience at the second West Virginia Coal Forum, held in Morgantown last week. (Fun meeting!)

Randy Huffman, head of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, reportedly said afterwards: "If you're selling a product and that product becomes obsolete, then you're out of business. Energy will not be obsolete. Coal may become obsolete, but energy won't."

I can hardly wait.

Burying Mountain Streams Under Mining Rubble

2008-10-23T18:53:42Z

When is a stream no longer a stream? In other words, if you fill it, will it still flow?

When mountaintop mining occurs the waste rock, rubble, dirt and other debris that results from blasting gets push off the cleared ridge-top and unceremoniously dumped down the mountainside. Not only does the hyrdology change due to the drastic topographic and vegetative alterations of the landscape, but the streams flowing down the mountainsides and through the valleys below disappear. Burying waterways under tons of mining waste -- otherwise known as a 'valley fill' -- simply obliterates them.

The question then is whether it is possible for the mining companies to mitigate the damage by restoring or re-engineering the destroyed waterways. The common-sense response is absolutely not. In both appearance in function, these former streams no longer exist after mining. But in Appalachia, the mining companies routinely get the benefit of doubt from federal regulators, resulting time and time again in permits issued by the U.S. Corps of Engineers that allow rivers, creeks and streams to be filled with waste from mountaintop removal mining.

In a case playing out right now in federal court in West Virginia, environmental lawyers are taking on the coal industry over this very topic. Scientists testified yesterday that there is little evidence to support the claim that streams buried by mountaintop mining can be rebuilt. However, they say regulators routinely approve such projects anyway, through a fatally flawed formula and a review process that stifles public input.

Mark Brinson, an East Carolina University biologist, told the judge the Army Corps of Engineers' formula would not score well if a student submitted it in one of his classes. "I wouldn't even grade it," he said.

Emily Bernhardt, a Duke University stream ecologist, said the corps' formula does not even spell out how it accounts for the core role of streams in the movement of water, energy and nutrients. "I don't see how you can assess something as basic as hydrology without knowing anything about water flow," she said.

Brinson agreed. "You need to be able to measure some of these functions, otherwise, you're just whistling in the dark," Brinson said.

Brinson and Bernhardt both testified that the corps' new formula is not nearly detailed enough to truly measure what is lost when headwater streams are buried, let alone decide if mine operator proposals to replace lost ecological functions will work.

Bernhardt said, "There isn't a great deal of evidence -- some would argue no evidence at all -- that recreating streams" will work on mountaintop removal sites. "The likelihood of achieving true biological re-creation is very limited."

Lawyers for the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy filed the lawsuit to block a permit for two adjacent strip mines that would mountaintop-remove nearly 10 million tons of coal from a 900-acre area in Lilly Fork of Buffalo Creek near the town of Gilboa. In the process, more than five miles of streams would be buried beneath 10 valley fills, according to permit documents.

Company officials propose to offset this loss by restoring or creating nearly five miles of streams on a separate reclaimed mine site. (The company already buried more than 500 feet of streams without the proper permit but Corps officials took no enforcement action, concluding that the violation did "not present an immediate threat to life or property.")

Let's hope the judge in this case listens to the scientists, not the mining engineers and agency 'experts', when deciding when a stream is no longer a stream thanks to mountaintop mining.

Witness Mountaintop Mining

2008-10-22T15:24:37Z

Yesterday I blogged about the Bush administration's new effort to weaken laws so coal companies can dump mining waste into America's rivers and streams. I posted a photo I took of a mountaintop mine. As one person commented, "More people need to see pictures like these to realize what is going on...It's just shocking!"

Good idea.

So here are some of the other photos I took last month while touring mining operations in West Virginia. I flew with Southwings over massive mining sites just outside of Charleston. The images tell the story.

It's not like this is the only mine we saw. Far from it. In all directions, as far as the eye can see, there are these sprawling open wounds scattered across the mountain range. Some extend more than 10 square miles. The scale of devastation is truly epic.

As we flew closer to the sites, the precision of the mining is impressive. What once was a thick-forested mountaintop is now a barren landscape. All vegetation has been meticulously scraped using explosives and huge earth-moving machines. Not a blade of grass is left on the table-top worksite; the topsoil is gone, exposing the bedrock on the ledges.

Lest anyone think that this wasteland is located in remote places, consider these next images. This particular Massey Energy coal mining operation, in West Virginia's Raleigh County, covers nearly 2,000 acres . At the bottom of the first photo below, just a couple hundred feet downstream from the plant's coal silo , is Marsh Fork Elementary School.

The kids at Marsh Fork not only have to contend with air pollution from the coal dust, but they also attend school in a danger zone just below one of the largest coal slurry ponds in the world. Yes, that black liquid in the photo below is the giganitic Shumate coal impoundment, filled with toxic water left over after the coal impurities are 'settled out'. The 'cleaned' coal is then transported down to the silo, before being loaded on to rail cars.

How would you like it if your child attended school practically at the foot of a leaking earthen dam that holds back billions of gallons of toxic coal sludge, at a strip mine where blasting happens all day?

On this trip I also met with local allies -- the Alliance for Appalachia and Coal River Mountain Watch -- to learn more about the problem. We drove up to Larry Gibson's property on Kayford Mountain, which is completely surrounded by mountaintop mining. Larry, bless his soul, has steadfastly refused to sell his family's land to mining companies -- and he graciously opens up his property to those who want to see firsthand what mountaintop mining is doing to his homeland.

Here is a mountain steadily being removed -- chunk by chunk -- right before our eyes, to access the thin coal seams below. Larry points out that his ridgetop used to be the lowest peak, but now looks down at the former mountaintops eaten away by the dozers.

The main emotion is shock, followed by outrage. It's one thing to see the scope of mountaintop mining from the air, however. Getting an up-close view at ground-level is even more heartbreaking. It's like staring into the abyss, gazing at the depths of Hell.

The dump truck below is larger than you can imagine. The tires are more than twice as tall as the average person. The bed can scoop up two house-sized loads of rock and rubble, which of course gets dumped down the side of the mountain into the valley below.

The debris buries headwater streams, disrupting the water table, drying up wells and poisoning water supplies for the communities located in those valleys. Without tree cover and vegetation, rain can't be absorbed and flitered -- so typical storms become squalls that cause flash flooding in the narrow valleys, wreaking havoc on people's property and threatening lives.

The new rules recently proposed by the Interior Department would legalize the so-called valley fills that come with mountaintop mining. Take a moment to submit your public comments against this practice.

After 8 long years of rampant destruction, mountaintop removal coal mining must be ended. With a new administration coming in, the fight is more urgent than ever.

I hope the photos I've shared move you to get engaged in the effort to stop mountaintop removal coal mining. You can also view videos of America's most endangered mountains here.

(Photo credit: Rob Perks)

Ask the Candidates, Get Candid Answers

2008-08-13T19:00:53Z

We expect much from our elected leaders yet rarely do we get the opportunity to engage them on the issues we care about. So many members of Congress, yet so little chance to actually ask them where they stand on important issues of the day.

Those running for office and their opponents spend most of the time on the campaign trail speaking to us rather than with us, it seems. They tell us what they believe – or usually just what they think we want to hear.

It’s time all of us got the chance to question those seeking our vote. Now it’s easy to do: www.CandidAnswers.org .

This website is the first-ever online survey that allows users to directly ask their candidates for Congress specific questions about key environmental policy issues. And when they answer, the site serves as an online voter guide so people can compare their candidates’ positions side-by-side. NRDC Action Fund and a host of partners are sponsoring the site. Policy experts at these groups developed the questions, which were reviewed and approved by a bi-partisan panel that included a former Congressman, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY). Straightforward questions in search of candid answers – that’s what the website is about!

The only time I actually succeeded in asking a candidate – face to face – his position on an issue I cared about was when I was running the PIRG canvass in Miami back in 1992. I read in the paper that presidential candidate Bill Clinton was going to be in town addressing Democratic state legislators at their annual conference.

At the time we were working to prevent drilling off the Florida coast (déjà vu!) and trying to drum up support for a proposal in Congress to buy back the federal leases held by some oil companies in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. I drove a few volunteers over to the convention site and we quietly slipped into the ballroom. Our plan was simple: spread out and try to position ourselves along the receiving line after Gov. Clinton finished his speech. Whoever got to him would ask him a question about drilling.

I worked my way up to the front of the audience, against the wall near a set of flag poles. Near the end of Clinton’s speech I saw a young campaign aide staging a group of military veterans near the flags. It seemed probable that the governor would head toward them for a photo op. Sure enough, after he finished talking Clinton offered perfunctory handshakes to a few officials below the podium and then strode briskly toward the old soldiers.

Just before he got to them I moved in and reached my hand over the velvet rope cordoning off the audience. The governor shook it – but I didn’t let go. I looked him in the eye and asked our set question: “Governor, if elected president would you support the plan to protect Florida’s coast by having the government buy back federal drilling leases in the Gulf?”

He smiled at me, paused, then with a slight shake of his head waved off a staffer approaching to hustle him away from me. At this point it seemed that all eyes in the room were focused on our exchange. Still smiling, Clinton asked, “What does Senator [Connie] Mack say about that?” I replied that the senator supported the buy-back plan. Without missing a beat he answered: “Then I would definitely support buying back those leases.”

Clinton then moved quickly on to those vets. But all of sudden I was surrounded by local reporters and a few TV cameras, all wanting to know what we discussed, why I asked, and who I was. The next day stories mentioned our exchange and one of the local news stations aired a brief interview with me about our campaign. And sure enough, after Clinton won the presidency the buy-back plan won approval in Congress.

Getting the chance to ask the future president a serious question was a unique thrill I’ll never forget. But like most people, I can forget getting such a lucky opportunity again. That's the beauty of CandidAnswers -- it enables everyone to seek answers from our congressional candidates. It's super easy to ask them via email and a convenient way for them to respond.

You ask, they answer. Simple. We hope you'll try it!

Many Mountains. One Voice.

2008-02-21T19:37:09Z

It's good to know that Kentuckians have laws to protect their communities from the abuses of our throwaway society. While spending time recently in the eastern part of the state, I was relieved when I read a front page story in the Floyd County Times about folks not just fined, but sent to jail for illegally dumping refuse along a county road. Watch out litter bugs or you may get unlucky in Kentucky!

But as bad as that particular problem is I have to wonder if broken glass, busted furniture and assorted trash cluttering roadsides and streams is really the highest priority pollution in need of enforcement. You would think that the authorities in eastern Kentucky have bigger fish to fry – namely those pesky coal companies that are literally blowing up mountains and burying the streams below with tons of rock and mine waste. Tackling unsightly litter is all good and well, but seriously, what about the rampant valley fills obliterating and polluting entire watersheds all over Appalachia?

Along with a few other NRDC colleagues, we took a trip to the region to meet with the Alliance for Appalachia, a coalition of local citizen groups fighting the coal companies that specialize in this most rapacious and reckless form of strip mining. Several groups have excellent websites, but a couple of especially good starting points to learn more about the growing movement to save America’s most ancient peaks are www.ILoveMountains.org or www.StopMountaintopRemoval.org.

You may have heard about this atrocity taking place primarily in West Virginia, western Virginia, eastern Kentucky and parts of Tennessee. Maybe you’ve watched documentaries or viewed videos about mountaintop removal coal mining, or even read some of the excellent books on the subject, such as Jeff Goodell’s Big Coal or Erik Reece’s Lost Mountain. But trust me, you simply cannot comprehend the scope and severity of the problem until you travel to Appalachia and bear witness to this tragedy.

During our visit we trekked the back roads of the coal fields in West Virginia and Kentucky, dodging speeding coal trucks laden with lumps of “black diamonds”, watching huge excavators eat away high-wall seams, staring slack-jawed as giant earth movers dumped endless layers of dirt down mountainsides, and wincing whenever high explosives reduced ridges to rubble.

Of course, it was down in the hollows where the worst impacts of mountaintop destruction hit home – literally. It’s there, along the narrow roads leading to and from the mines, where we met some of the victims. People like Dalven Ratliffe, a local pastor whose Kentucky home – and those of his neighbors – bear cracks in the walls, ceiling and foundation from the constant rattle of blasting.

We heard harrowing first-hand accounts of the harassment and lies by the coal companies who will stop at nothing to secure the leasing rights to residential property so they can expand the mining. Rev. Ratliffe refuses to sell out to Big Coal – but the result of his courageous stand is not just relentless industry abuse but also cold indifference if not outright hostility from government regulators who see their jobs as protecting coal profits, not the public interest.

We met a number of gracious folks who told us their stories and showed us how their lives are being ruined by environmental destruction fueled by a mix of senseless corporate greed and shocking government corruption. Most amazing to me, however, is the resilience of these folks despite the ugly legacy of Big Coal’s power over the people.

Take Rick Handshoe, for example. His family has lived on the same chunk of land at the foot of the mountains in that neck of Kentucky for over 200 years. Rick’s certainly not your typical activist – in fact, he’s the opposite of someone who usually fits that description. A friendly, fair-haired 47-year old, he became an outspoken opponent of mountaintop removal a few years back only after the mining crossed over a few ridges to his own back yard. Now his home and those throughout the valley are under siege – from burning coal ash that clouds the sky, from black dust that coats cars (and everything else), from dried up creeks where water flow is cut off by the valley fills, from methane gas that seeps into wells and faucets.

Unlike a lot of folks who feel there’s just no way to win against the coal companies, Rick is a leader fighting the good fight with help from Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. He’s doing this not just for his own sake or for the future of his daughter’s generation, but for everyone who’s suffering from this injustice.

Rick’s father lives nearby in a house built over 60 years ago by his father, which is catching all kinds of hell from the sprawling coal operation that moved in next door a couple of years ago. As we visited with Clinton Handshoe on his front porch, he ran his finger through the coal dust covering the plastic furniture and told us: “I drove a coal truck years ago. I’m not against coal. I’m against this.”

Everybody – not just in Appalachia but all over America – should be against the travesty of mountaintop removal coal mining. And everybody who cares should find a way to join the fight to save not someone else’s but our mountains. This destructive mining must end if for no other reason than so Mr. Handshoe can once again sit on his porch in peace and enjoy the view, in a world without the constant pounding of machinery against rock that is slowly but surely reducing his beloved mountains to a flat, dead moonscape.