From 35,000 Feet, Damage Done By Mountaintop Removal Mining Is Obvious

Yesterday morning I flew to a southern state famous for its, uh, electile dysfunction in the year 2000 (Don’t hate, it's a business trip).

As we flew over southern Ohio and, crossing the river into Kentucky and West Virginia on a clear, cold morning, certain scars on the face of the earth became apparent. These were the remnants of mountaintop removal mines. On a morning like yesterday, these mines are easy as hell to spot from the air. The unmolested mountaintops carry rich stands of trees, and the view of them is only accented by the blanket of white on the ground below. The former mines however, have no trees, and so assault the eyes with a piercing of white snow reflecting the bright sunlight.

The next thing you notice are how the graceful curves of land that was thrust upwards by a collision between continents and then eroded for hundreds of millions of years into a flowing, curving shape with a natural peaks have been replaced by a precise geometric stairstep pattern with no peak at all, instead it is remarkably, unnaturally flat. The stairstep pattern gives the impression that perhaps someone was trying to build an amphitheater to seat 40,000 people or so, until you see the next one, and the next one, and the next one and realize that these constructs are simply the effort of men to extract the maximum amount of coal from the earth while employing the minimum number of workers to do it, and the consequences for God’s creation be damned.

During President Obama's Q-and-A with the House GOP conference in Baltimore last friday, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) referred to West Virginia as a "resource rich state" and criticized President Obama's plans to control our carbon dioxide emissions and provide incentives for inventing advanced energy alternatives because of its impact on the coal mining industry.

I would like to ask Congresswoman Capito, has coal mining brought prosperity to West Virginia? Or has it done the opposite: made the state poorer not only because of the slow bleed of jobs as huge machines replace laborers, but also because of the ghastly impact on your environment so obvious from 35,000 feet?

If coal mining has not brought prosperity to West Virginia (and southern Ohio) over the last 150 years, instead of continuing to do what you’re always done, perhaps maybe it is time to try something different? Like instead of destroying your mountaintops, perhaps putting wind turbines on them?

Such a proposal would require courage and leadership especially in areas of the country that have traditionally been dependent on coal mining for jobs. Hopefully, someone in this country possesses that leadership and courage, and steps up to the plate before more of our mountaintops become sad scars upon our land.