Powerful, Powerful Road Trip

[12voltman59]

Well----I am back home in "civilization" today-- back in my nice rather very well of suburb of my "city" and as bad as things might be in parts of Dayton and Cincinnati----after all the things I saw down in West Virginia on my "up close and personal" "research" into the issue of Mountaintop Removal Coal mining---away from the interstates and all since last Thursday----I will never hardly complain at what we are experiencing.

In those few days-----I drove nearly a thousand miles and even walked with a group on Saturday between two towns which was the first day of an 18-day walk they are making from the heart of the West Virginia coal fields to Washington, DC to bring attention to this issue.

I met and spoke with many people in those few days----learning of what life is like down in the land of "King Coal"---it ain't pretty or all that nice I can tell ya.

I won't go on too long here--thankfully for you all---but I just have to say--it was very much a "learning experience" and it was at times very moving and emotional-----what I learned, saw and and experienced was very powerful and pretty damn overhwhelming too---I am still trying to get my head wrapped around it all.

I will post up some pics later, even though you can see all the photos in the world on this--and it is not all like seeing the after affects of MTR up close.

Now what I really need to do ---is to snag someone who has a light plane who can take me up for a few hours and we fly over many of the almost 500 mountains that have been or are being mined--they say that is the only way that you can actually get a true sense of the massive destruction that MTR does to the land.

From what I have heard from folks down there----it seems to me----as destructive to the land that MTR is----I really think the most destructive thing of all about it all----what devastion of the hearts, minds and souls of the people are being done by all this----the basic spirt of the people in those areas is to be kind and generous--to help others out and all even when they themsevles don't have much---but thanks to this whole thing and the way the management of the coal companies whips people up---it drives them to all kinds of bad things that does include killing others who don't agree with them.

[12voltman59]

A few road trip pics from West Virginia.

This first photo--the first night down before I headed into coal country--I stayed at an "old school" type of motel---old but very nice and clean place--that sits along the banks of the Kanawha River (pronounced Can-aww) The river is a conduit for coal, oil and chemical barges----this barge is just getting underway after taking on a load of coal at a coal loading station not a quarter mile upriver from the motel

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r216/mpgarr/ThelakeandWestVirginiaMTR019.jpg

These next pics----I took them down in the Coal River Valley----this memorial is in Whitesville, WVa not far from the Upper Branch Mine---where the 29 miners were recently killed-this is a but one of many such memorials you see all over coal country:

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The next set of photos I took up on the last remaining untouched part of Kayford Mountain, WVa that has not been mined----we were standing up on a ridge looking down to that area below--well try to imagine instead of big pit down there--that was all mountain and if you looked up----it was once the same distance to the top of what was once mountain to the distance it was below--and the last two photos of the high point--that is the familial cemetary of the man who still owns this part of the mountain and refuses to sell it to Massie Energy since he holds clear title to not only the land but the most important thing of all in these parts--he retains the mineral rights---he could sell it to Massie for around a half billion dollars--but he won't sell it for any amount of money!!! Ongoing mining has stopped on that part of the mountain for now---(the total footprint of Kayford Mountain once covered 12,000 acres)---but they will be back at some point to get at more coal----and when they do--since the coal company (it is believed some of their thugs removed the headstones in the graveyard and they are nowhere to be found)----since the stones are gone--the company can now just go ahead and dig it up without concern for removing the bones of the people buried there--if the headstones were still there-they would have to pay to move them to a new place--something that costs a few thousand dollars per person----and the people buried there--the family has been there since the late 1700s, with the oldest burials going back that far but the most recent burials in that plot dating back to the 1990s. Massie Energy claims that the man I saw or some of his people were the ones to have removed the stones-but why would they do that?? Who profits from the headstones being taken away??? Not this man----Massie Energy does!!! That is the kind of horse hockey pucks the coal companies say.

In another area where they are just starting to do some MTR---in the heart of the the New and Gauley River areas---among two of the most pristine and wild rivers in the eastern US and where they have thriving tourism and people coming to run the rivers with canoes, rafts and kayaks----"King Coal" has it sights set on working those moutains right up to this area, and that would polllute both the New and Gauley (the New actually becomes the Kanawha at the point of the Kanawha Falls) making them not safe to be in and killing tourism. We met with a lady there who along with her husband, who retired to the area some years back--are fighting the efforts of the coal companies to mine in this area----like the man we went to see on Kayforod Mountain who is fighting to save his portion of mountain--or anyone who dares challenge the primacy of "King Coal'---they are the recipients of anything from "I am gonna kick your ass" to "we have a bullet with your name on it" calls in the middle of the night. As this lady says--with the close relationship of the government of the state of West Virginia and the coal industry and its "friends," she liked to say--"this is like dealing with the Mafia down here!"

The mining on Kayford Mountain started in 1986.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r216/mpgarr/ThelakeandWestVirginiaMTR043.jpg

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Final photo: A billboard in Charleston----part of a big campaign by "Friends of Coal" --companies that make money off coal too-in this case--the regional distributor of Caterpiller Heavy Machinery--- equipment used to do the work of MountainTop Removal Coal Mining---one of their tag lines is that coal is clean and thiis is so rich!!! That coal is "carbon neutral"--nothing could be further from the truth---coal is not entirely carbon---but it mostly is---another irony of sorts--in this shot you don't see it----but there was a lower down billboard that offered help for those suffering from Diabetes--one of the many health problems that runs rampant in West Virginia:

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r216/mpgarr/ThelakeandWestVirginiaMTR072.jpg

[Realist]

I lived in Kentucky for 30 years and my ex father in law was fine man from Hazard. He was lucky enough to get a scholarship and went to college to be a pharmacist. Only those with the abilities and intelligence to get away would live past what the rest of us call middle age.

Coal mining is a hard life and it takes hard people to deal with it. I've met a lot of good folks in those "hollers" who'd give you the shirt off their backs. But, I thank my lucky stars that I wasn't born into that life!

[12voltman59]

I am going to this concert next week in Nashville at the Ryman----check out the short music vid that Big Kenny shot---the place they did that was about the same place I was standing where I took the pics---those various scenes in the vid came from several documentary films that have been done on MTR

http://www.musicsavesmountains.org/

[csreef]

Coal mining is a hard life and it takes hard people to deal with it. I've met a lot of good folks in those "hollers" who'd give you the shirt off their backs. But, I thank my lucky stars that I wasn't born into that life!

I'll tell you one thing...I wouldn't work in a Coal mine for all the money in the world!!! God bless thoes brave men!

[Realist]

Yes, those mines are scary, in more than one way! I met a man Cumberland, Ky, who had a small mine on his land. Think of gas, cave-ins, etc, awful!

The seam was only about 38" high and he had worked it for many years. He picked-axed the coal, while laying on an automotive-creeper-like thing that he laid on. I can't fathom going in there, much less having to work so hard like that, while laying on his side! He pushed a cart in there, loaded it, then when he came out, he'd pull the loaded cart out with a cable. I have no idea how far he went inside!