Critics of Coal: Outside Interests Plunder Region, Source of Economic Woes

WISE, Va. – Environmental and social justice advocates, along with many scholars who study Appalachia, blame the region’s enduring challenges on its history, defined loosely as a series of visits by outsiders intent on taking what they wanted with no concern for the impact left behind.

Some stress that they aren’t opposed to mining, but others argue that despite the wages paid to their neighbors and taxes to government, the extraction of coal does more harm than good.

“From what the coal industry is saying about how it’s such a boon to the economy, you’d think that the streets are paved with gold, but in truth … poverty and unemployment rates in the coal-producing counties of Appalachia ... are off the charts,” said Lenny Kohm, campaign director for Appalachian Voices, a nonprofit social and environmental advocacy group based in Boone, N.C.

“If America is dependent so much on coal for its energy needs,” Kohm asks, “why are these people so poor?”

Two studies just released, one in Kentucky and one in West Virginia, conclude that coal mining costs government more than it generates in revenue.

In Kentucky, the Mountain Association for Community and Economic Development determined that in 2006 coal mining cost the state $115 million more than it collected from the industry in revenue and fees.

“Coal is responsible for an estimated $528 million in state revenues and $643 million in state expenditures,” according to the report titled The Impact of Coal on the Kentucky State Budget. “These figures cover only a portion of the full costs of the coal industry to the state.”

Among the costs excluded from the study were those for health care, lost productivity resulting from injury, water treatment and the replacement of damaged wells.

The West Virginia study, conducted by researchers at West Virginia University to examine mortality in mining communities, concluded that “the human cost of the Appalachian coal mining economy outweighs the economic benefits.”

Bill Caylor, a spokesman for the Kentucky Coal Association called the Mountain Association study “voodoo economics.”

Coal industry advocates also point to good-paying jobs in mining, low-cost electricity and the development potential of flat land from surface mining as benefits of the industry’s longtime presence here.

“A lot of people continue to have jobs, and our industry really contributes a lot to local economies,” said Barbara Altizer, executive director of the Eastern Coal Council, which promotes the use of coal for energy. “I really think that after the [surface mined] land has been reclaimed, it’s much more beneficial and useful than it is just with these severe mountains.”

Vivian Stockman, project coordinator for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition based in Huntington, W.Va., said mining still damages the environment, and that results in a real economic loss.

“Intact forest provides flood control, soil erosion prevention, water purification, air purification and a host of other services that are the basis of a healthy,
functioning economy as well as ecosystem,” Stockman said. “You don’t have to destroy the entire environment in order to provide jobs, and it’s just another faulty excuse for letting the coal industry do whatever it wants to rape and pillage and leave.”

Kathy Selvage, vice-president of Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, a nonprofit group based in Appalachia, Va., that opposes mountain top mining, said the Virginia coalfields region has fueled the development of the nation, but has nothing left to show for it economically.

“It’s affected our health here, both our physical health and our mental health,” Selvage said. “Our terrain doesn’t even look the same anymore, so we’ve lost our sense of place, and of course it hurts us because our environment is destroyed. We can see our waters run black, and we know what water is supposed to look like.”

Steve Fisher, a retired professor who lives in Emory, Va., and has taught and written extensively about the region, said the region should not have to choose between jobs and the mountains.

“What kind of economy is it that forces people between losing their homes and their mountains and their environment and having jobs? There has to be a better way to do this,” he said. “The coal industry has removed a tremendous amount of wealth from this area, and it has not invested back into this area in a way that can lead to general prosperity for the general population.”

Fisher said he supports economic development: “It’s just that … there’s not enough money coming back for what’s been taken out.”

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