Prosecutors say in court documents that evidence about the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster is a necessary part of the government's criminal case against…
Prosecutors say in court documents that evidence about the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster is a necessary part of the government’s criminal case against former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports prosecutors made the filing in a brief filed in U.S. District Court.
The filing says jurors will need to hear about the 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners to understand charges that Blankenship lied to securities regulators and to investors about Massey’s safety practices.
Blankenship’s attorneys had previously asked that evidence from the mine disaster be excluded from the jury trial, which is set to begin in October in Charleston.
Blankenship has been charged with conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards.
The indictment says hid those violations from government inspectors.
Increasingly, working class men in Appalachia can’t find work.
Central Appalachia has seen thousands of layoffs in the coal industry this decade. More and more, women are the main breadwinners.
This week on The Front Porch podcast: What does this new gender dynamic mean in a traditional culture like Appalachia? And what does it mean to be a man, when the old ideas no longer hold sway?
An edited version of “The Front Porch” airs Fridays at 4:50 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s radio network, and the full version is available above.
Share your opinions with us about these issues, and let us know what you’d like us to discuss in the future. Send a tweet to @radiofinn or @wvpublicnews, or e-mail Scott at sfinn @ wvpublic.org
W. Va. Secretary of Commerce Keith Burdette greets Shanxi Provincial Education Department Director-General Zhang Wendong
A delegation from China was in West Virginia today to sign agreements with representatives from the state’s business, educational and government agencies.
Zhang Wendong, the Educational Department Director-General of the Shanxi province in China was one of the dignitaries signing memorandums of understanding to promote educational exchanges and business collaborations.
At a ceremony this morning at the Culture Center in Charleston, West Virginia Secretary of Commerce Keith Burdette says with the export of 550 million dollars in various West Virginia products, China is the state’s second largest international market in 2014.
“And from those from West Virginia let me say today is an excellent example of why our global outreach is so important to our economy.”
Shanxi is one of China’s top coal producing provinces and representatives of the Datong Mining Group and the Petitto Mine EquipmentCompany of Morgantown signed a purchase agreement. Petitto will sell it’s specialized coal equipment to the Chinese. It’s a move Burdette says that’s good for the state.
“The last documents signed today mean jobs for West Virginians.”
Burdette says West Virginia has a long standing relationship of student exchange with China.
Many of Appalachia’s coal mines were dug before the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 was passed. Thousands of problem mines throughout the region are not subject to that law’s protections. These so-called pre-law mines come with a bevy of issues—they fill up with water, cause landslides, and catch fire.
Jim Holliday is all too familiar with these dangers. He’s a veteran mine inspector whose job it is to clean up these decades-old mine problems.
Holliday has a handlebar mustache and wears a federal Office of Surface Mining uniform. He used to work on strip mines, but for decades he’s been inspecting old coal mines that now pose problems.
HOUSES ON THE BRINK OF COLLAPSE
Today he’s driving along Highway 80 in Perry County, the heart of Eastern Kentucky coal country. He turns off the road into a hollow.
“Coal seam level’s right up above that old hill,” he says. “But this is a community that’s built up in early years, railroad track came through the hollow. They mined everything they can get in these hollows.”
He gets out of the SUV and walks toward a house that hugs a steep hillside. The crushed stone driveway is brand new. Holliday’s partner for the day, Wally Barger, joins him.
Barger is a mine inspector with the Kentucky Department of Natural Resources, and he stands next to the house with grey siding.
They’re here to look at one of the most common issues posed by these old mines.
“Just the water, too much groundwater from the mining back in the 1940s and ‘50s,” he says, pointing to the hillside above. “There’s like three coal seams—the Hazard 5, Hazard 7, and Hazard 8, (and they) all had either underground mining or auger mining water build-up from voids in the mountain,” Barger explains.
That water caused the hillside where Barger and Holliday stand to move. That pushed the ground from underneath the house they’re standing next to. The house’s owner comes out to greet them.
“The house started falling–the basement just dropped out—it just kept getting’ worse and worse and worse,” says Ed Noble.
Noble grew up nearby—he remembers watching miners digging coal out of the hillside above. He’s owned this house 20 years. In late 2013, the house began breaking apart.
“Water was coming out under the floor. It was just slipping—the whole basement dropped down about 4 foot—went straight down,” he says.
The state came in and dug straight down to bedrock. It reinforced the foundation of the house, and it saved Ed Noble’s house.
Barger says there was a moment in the project when he thought Ed Noble’s house would have to be demolished.
“I thought we lost it—and we were able to get it cribbed back up and get it stabilized….We spent about a half a million dollars to save this house,” Barger says.
The state of Kentucky got that money from a special tax on coal that goes specifically to abandoned mines built before 1977. But that source of funding might not last forever. For starters, there is less coal being mined these days, so there’s less money in the fund. And in 2021, unless Congress renews it, the money is scheduled run out.
“We’ll never run out of reclamation but we will run out of money,” Barger says. “Their money’s going to start dwindling—then it’s going to come to a halt. It’s not going to be there anymore.”
CONTINUOUS FIRES
Holliday and Barger get back in the SUV, and make their way to the top of a hillside. It’s steep, and covered with waste coal. Basically, it looks like a huge pile of charcoal was dumped on the hillside.
Holliday walks to a part of the hill where blue smoke is wafting off the ground.
“When you see steam, smoke, that stuff can be burnin’ underneath—I wouldn’t venture around too much on it,” he says.
This is a coal refuse fire. Barger’s agency has to put out the fire. Basically, all the old coal on the ground is burning. The smell is awful–sulfurous, sticky, sweet. Barger says it can stay with you for days.
The mine here was built in the 1920s. The coal on the hillside was waste coal. It wasn’t pure enough to sell, so the miners just left it on the ground.
“You will find rocks and burning’ materials in there at 350–400 degrees. You have to isolate them…have to mix them with materials,” Barger says. “We use waters to cool it down so operators can operate safely.”
Many hillsides in Eastern Kentucky are covered by pieces of coal left by miners long gone. Fires will be igniting for years to come. Forest fires can cause them, and they can burn for years.
Holliday and Barger get back in the truck. They say they will keep doing this work—policing landslides and putting out fires—as long as the money keeps coming in to pay for it.
Photos by Reid R. Frazier. Top left: Ed Noble’s home in Hiner, Kentucky almost had to be demolished because of shifting land from old coal mines. Bottom right: A coal refuse fire smolders in Carbon Glow, Letcher County, Eastern Kentucky.
At a state park in Logan County, West Virginia, dozens of coal miners and their families are milling around a vast meeting room. State officials called this meeting to help them figure out what to do next after the coal mine they worked in closed. Dell Maynard is one of these miners. His primary emotion right now is shock.
“I’ve been laid off three times in the last year,” says Maynard. “I’m not kidding. And it’s not because I don’t try to find a job because I’ve found three. Oh, it’s awful. I’m telling you this place is going to be a ghost town if they don’t do something.”
Faced with competition from natural gas and increasing federal regulations, layoffs and mine closings like this one are becoming more and more common in parts of West Virginia and Kentucky. The coal industry is facing tough times.
For others in Logan County, it’s anger—at the federal government, politicians, at the coal companies, each other.
“I think I’m more angry than anything because I don’t think this has to happen,” says Steve Sigmon. “It’s hurtful. Don’t know really where to turn. I mean I’m not an old man, but I’m not a young man either. And to start focusing on another career, it’s a big adjustment in life.”
Many are trying to bargain their way back to the way things used to be. If they could just get this one guy out of office, things would be great again.
“Obama has absolutely stuck a dagger in the heart of coal,” says Maynard.
All over Appalachia, people are in different stages of mourning this thing that’s put dinner on the table and shaped the culture for so long. Some are even starting to talk about a transition. About Appalachia, about moving past coal.
Credit Catherine Moore
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At Lucas Farm, Shane Lucas makes some ‘real money’ selling produce at a roadside stand.
COLLAPSE AND RENEWAL
Shane Lucas trudges through the cold mud at a small mountain farm outside of Whitesburg, Kentucky to a weathered barn on his property. It used to be a coal tipple—a structure where the coal is loaded for transport. Coal’s long decline in Appalachia really began back in the 1950s, when machines started replacing miners.
“Back in the ’50s, my papaw run a coal tipple in the head of the holler up here. And they all shut down,” says Lucas. “So they went up in there and tore the coal tipple down.
His wife wants him to tear it down.
“I hate to tear it down…I was thinking of building me a building, a chicken house or something out of it, just to keep it,” he says.
Like his father, Lucas is building something new in the shadow of industry’s decay. And like his barn, Lucas’ story is one of collapse and renewal.
For almost 20 years, he was a surface miner, running a production drill at the vast Cumberland River Coal complex near his home. He loved his job. But then two years ago, his life took a dramatic turn when he was laid off by Arch Coal. One day, they just shut the doors.
“Drawed us into the room,” Lucas explains. “We all started handing out the envelopes. And you open them up and there it is. Everybody was scared to death, everybody’s saying ‘What are we going to do?’ Because there’s nothing out here. In debt. How are they going to pay for everything? It was really a bad moment.”
But Lucas had a back-up plan. He started Lucas farm—where he grows broccoli, turnips, and apple trees. What started as a scheme to haul produce from Tennessee to pay for fishing trips has since blossomed into broccoli, turnips, and apple trees. By the time he lost his job, Lucas was making some real money selling at his roadside stand—not like in the mines, but just maybe…enough.
“Fooling with this, I’m never broke,” he says. “I’ve always got a dollar in my pocket. I might not could pay bills but I’ve always got a dollar in my pocket. I could survive. You know if I get laid off, keep from having to leave this part, maybe I could grow. My wife works, so maybe we could make it instead of having to move off.”
FILLING A GIANT HOLE LEFT BY COAL
“The region is in a really critical moment of economic transition. For me, it’s a really pregnant moment of opportunity,” says Ivy Brashear, an eastern Kentuckian who works for Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, a non-profit that’s helping to chart a course for economic transition in the region.
Her group focuses on entrepreneurship, energy efficiency, forestry, and local foods. She’s part of a movement that is spreading in Appalachia, calling for more dialogue, planning, and investment by citizens, government, and NGOs to fill the giant hole created by coal’s hollowing out.
“Not that it’s easy to make that transition,” says Brashear. “It’s really not. It’s long, it’s hard and it’s expensive. But there really is no other option for us if we are to survive as a region and as a people than to search for alternatives and to do something else.”
For former miners like Lucas, there is a lot to work out. Growing food is an old tradition in Eastern Kentucky, but selling crops is actually pretty new. Last year, when his boss called and offered Lucas back his surface mining job, he said yes. But this time, he’s not banking on the coal mine re-opening. He’s got a plan. Over the next five years, Lucas will be turning more ground under, planting a big berry patch, and looking to source produce year-round.
Can he make a living farming full time? He’s got his doubts, but he’s willing to give it a try.
“Would my life be easier…just go back to coal mining and forget this?” he asks. “Or do I still try to juggle both and shoot for something that may not never happen and still have to go back to the coal mines? That’s what’s hard right now.”
Lucas is at a threshold—with one foot in an ailing traditional industry and one in a new economy. Like many people in Appalachia, he’s just trying to find his footing. He’s thinking about what to build out of the wood of an old coal tipple.
Southern Coal Corp. says it plans to hire 100 miners at four surface mines in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.
Two mines are in Wise County, Virginia. One is in Letcher County, Kentucky, and the other is in Raleigh County, West Virginia. The company says the mines currently employ a total of about 200 workers.
The Bristol Herald Courier reports that Southern Coal announced the hiring plans on Wednesday.
Southern Coal is owned by Jim Justice, owner of The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.. In a news release the company says it has entered into a multi year agreement with American Electric Power to be able to save jobs and restart the mines.
