In their October/November issue The Appalachian Voice featured a section titled “The Coal Report.” The two pages that “The Coal Report” took up in the independent newspaper contained multiple short articles linked to coal mining and governmental policy. One story in particular caught my eye. “Blair Mountain Community Fights to Keep Mining History Above Ground.” The title itself was what drew my attention to the short, two paragraph article. In the Ancient Sunshine theme of my sustainable development course we had discussed mountaintop removal and the dangers it presents to us and our environment. Mountaintop removal has destroyed many communities by making the people’s land toxic and unlivable. By forcing people off of their land mountaintop removal has also utterly destroyed their culture, their way of life. The reason that this specific article made me look twice was because it wasn’t just a group of people worried about their homes and way of life, they were worried about their history.
The article describes a new community center and museum that is meant to showcase many historic artifacts and documents from the 1921 coal miner uprising which happened only two miles from the site the museum now sits on. The second section of the article simply states that the community is asking the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to look into the Camp Branch mine permit that threatens at least one important portion of the battlefield. I found this extremely significant because it shows another aspect of how mining can hurt a community.
Considering the location of the Blair Mountain community, it seems safe to assume that the inhabitants have probably seen the destruction of mountaintop removal first hand in other parts of West Virginia. They have heard stories like the ones we studied in class: stories of sludge ponds breaking their dams and drowning innocent children, or of cancers killing 16 year old children. Now they face the problem head on. A strip mine has a permit to mine on land that includes a part of their history that has shaped who they see themselves as today. It is not the giant devil-being that we know of as mountaintop removal, just a simple strip mine. In many ways it is far preferable to the barbarous practice that destroys whole mountains, but that is also the point of what I am saying. Any type of modern day mining causes destruction in some way. It could be underground mining that kills workers slowly with black lung, strip mining, or the diabolical mountaintop removal.
To put it simply, “Blair Mountain Community Fights to Keep Mining History Above Ground,” presents two new sides to the story that I didn’t really get from the readings I did for class. The simple one is that it demonstrates strip mining’s ability to destroy. Strip mining has properties that, while extremely detrimental, are severely overlooked because they pale in comparison to the effects of mountaintop removal. The more complex aspect of the story is a simple fact that it presents to us. Our culture is very much tied to and developed by our surroundings and our history. When any part of this is changed or destroyed, so is a piece of who we are. That is why the people of the Blair Mountain Community are trying to stop the strip mine. If the Camp Branch mine destroys part of a local historic battlefield, it also destroys a part of the communities past, a part of them.
As for the accuracy of the article, “Blair Mountain Community Fights to Keep Mining History Above Ground,” was a simple presentation of facts. It told us that a community center and museum had opened near a battle ground and that the people there wanted to preserve that land against a strip mine. There is a slight bias in the article leaning in favor of the people opposed to the mine as the article only states their intention and actions. Other than that, it is well written and to the point.
No comments:
Post a Comment