Letter to Senator Robert Byrd: Save My Home

The following is a letter from Bo Webb, of Peachtree, West Virginia, to Sen. Robert Byrd. Mr. Webb is a Vietnam veteran who now lives below a mountaintop removal coal mine, which uses huge explosives to blast away the tops of mountains.

Dear Sen. Byrd,

I write you today as a grandfather, and as a deep admirer of your inimitable contribution to our beloved state of West Virginia. As the son of a coal miner, I will always value your work to ensure economic investment and proper safety in our coalfields.

Soon, as you know, as the colorful peepers of red bush and wake robins pull from the clinch of winter, I will take my granddaughter's hand and roam our Clay Branch hollows in search of ramps. This has been a 150-year tradition in my family in the Coal River mountain range, as I am sure it was for your family along Wolf Creek.

This year, though, instead of that pungent smell of wild ramps and the blossoms of spring, my granddaughter will be exposed to the sickening haze of ammonium nitrate and diesel oil, and the after shower of silica dust that blankets our hollow like a plague. Our ancestral mountain in the Peachtree community is being destroyed for a mountaintop removal operation.

In your wonderful book last year, Letter to a New President: Commonsense Lessons for Our Next Leader, you wrote that we should never turn our backs on the lessons of our coal-mining fathers. My father, like others in my family, first started working in the mines at age 11. But it is the grave of my Uncle Clyde Williams, who died in the mine at Leevale here on Coal River Mountain at age 17, that also hovers in my mind as I walk these hills, gather herbs and berries, and hunt and fish with my grandchildren.

I want my children and grandchildren to have the right to dream and flourish as great contributors to our state in West Virginia. I don't want them to feel compelled to leave our state to look for employment or to realize their dreams. I want them to know that the rule of law protects them, their families and our mountains.

You, more than any other person in our state, understand this. When you went to Washington, D.C., for the first time to represent West Virginia, more than 130,000 union coal miners proudly toted their lunch pails and went to their jobs in the underground mines in our state. And you, as our voice in Washington, proudly made sure their safety and security were priorities to the rest of the country. Today, only 20,000 West Virginia coal miners make up those ranks. In many respects, strip mining and mountaintop removal operations have robbed my generation and my children of a chance to maintain our great Appalachian heritage, our beloved mountains and vibrant streams, and above all, any diverse economic development in our community.

In responding to the recent EPA decision to scrutinize mountaintop removal permits more closely last week, you wrote: "Every job in West Virginia matters. Everyone involved must act swiftly in concert and cooperation to remedy any problems that threaten coal jobs and the people who live in the local communities where coal is mined."

Sen. Byrd, as a grandfather, I write to you: If our grandchildren are going to have any jobs and future at all in West Virginia, we must get beyond the stranglehold of mountaintop removal coal operations and find a way to bring new jobs and life to our mountain communities.

This could be your greatest legacy, among many, Sen. Byrd. Your public role in co-sponsoring the Appalachian Mountain Restoration Act (S.696) to defend the health and safety of our communities and putting an end to mountaintop removal and its destruction of our local economies, would place our state back on track for responsible mining, more coal mining employment, and a step toward a diversified economy that includes loans and investment in manufacturing of renewable energy products, such as wind turbine and solar panels, and high-technology operations.

In your powerful Letter to a New President, you wrote: "What determines the quality of American democracy is the use we make of our power. We have institutions in place to help this country avoid the misuse of our power. Those institutions are Congress, the courts and public opinion. The more we cut off true debate and the exchange of ideas, and let those in power use emotion, misdirection and the manipulation of truth to whip the nation into action, the more likely we are to make dangerous mistakes in how we use our power. A representative democracy only works when the people are involved. We need them."

We need you now more than ever, Sen. Byrd, to bring new jobs, and restore a new sense of democracy to the coalfields of West Virginia.

Comments

[BobKincaid]

To TryToBeFlexible:

I read your comment with some small degree of frustration. You write as though West Virginia is uniformly homophobic. You're sadly mistaken. Still, we hillbillies are used to bigotry, so let me try to help you past yours.

There is not a single environmental group in West Virginia that is not LGBT firendly. That we have to climb uphill with one foot in a bucket does, indeed, have something to do with the toxically religious climate in this state. Do please tell me how that differs from Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Idaho, Utah, Florida, Georgia, Wyoming, or any other states save Vermont, New Jersey, Iowa and Massachusetts.

Obviously, you are unaware that the ONLY 5-night-per-week LGBT conversation program was produced via the West Virginia studios of America's oldest liberal talk network.

I take it that you are unaware that West Virginia's Legislature, notorious for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, fended off a FEROCIOUS drive by right-wing hatemongers this session and declined to put forward a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Remind me: how did "liberal," "tolerant" California do on that score?

Before you lay out pre-conditions for others demanding an end to the destruction of our state, perhaps you might want to educate yourself on our present realities here in the mountains. West Virginia, and Appalachia generally, isn't exactly a haven for the gay community, but we certainly have strong pockets of both tolerance and advocacy.

[FilthyCoal]

Coal Mining and it's by-products don't just effect West Virginia. The entire Appalachian area is being poisoned by coal ash. Not only are they tearing down our mountains, they are contaminating our water supply with heavy metals. Harriman, Tennessee is just one community that has seen the ghastly effects of coal ash. To see a disturbing before-and-after video of Harriman and learn how you can fight coal ash in your community, visit http://www.filthycoal.org

[Pablo175]

"This could be your greatest legacy, among many, Sen. Byrd. Your public role in co-sponsoring the Appalachian Mountain Restoration Act (S.696) to defend the health and safety of our communities and putting an end to mountaintop removal and its destruction of our local economies, would place our state back on track for responsible mining, more coal mining employment, and a step toward a diversified economy that includes loans and investment in manufacturing of renewable energy products, such as wind turbine and solar panels, and high-technology operations."

What you are advocating defies logic and economics. Outlawing mountaintop mining will eliminate those jobs too. Traditional underground mining is not economic. Making wind turbines and solar panels in WV makes no sense. It doesn't have enough sun or wind to be a logical place for manufacturing those products. You are asking the government to build a new buggy whip manufacturing plant in WV. Just because the government spends money doesn't mean jobs will be created.

[patchworker]

Underground mining is still happening, and still employs 1.5 to 2x the amount of workers as Surface mining. That said - your point is taken. Seams thick enough for underground mining are getting harder to find, which is a signal that we're getting closer and closer to running out of coal in WV. The most destruction of communities and the land of Southern WV comes when coal companies go after thinner seams. Since these seams are thin, and cannot be mined through underground or auger methods -- the coal companies simply blow up the mountain above the seams to get them and bury the valleys / hollows of WV in the process. So, we get more destruction for less coal. Going after that scenario is the wrong choice for WV.

Coal is needed and is an important part of Southern WV's economy, but we absolutely cannot sacrifice everything we have to get the thin seams of coal through mountaintop removal.

Southern WV has the potential for expanding jobs in foresty, reclamation of existing MTR sites, wind power (yes, our ridges have wind potential for everything from community scale to industrial scale wind), manufacturing wind turbines, tourism (of our rich history), maintaining rail lines, farming (in many areas), etc etc etc. I am optimistic about the skill of WV's workers and I hope that the WV State Government + the Federal Government shifts our policy incentives from encouraging the Big Coal Mono-Economy to a Diversified Economy that emphasizes many many sources

[zizyphus]

The people could be growing hemp, instead of removing mountain tops. Tell Senator Byrd that.

[BobKincaid]

We will. Quick as we get Mountain Removal ended. Sad fact is, however, that even hemp likely won' t grow on the moonscapes the coal industry leaves behind. Even hemp has to put roots SOMEWHERE. On a mountaintop removal moonscape, that "somewhere" doesn't exist.

Even on "reclaimed" sites (less than 3% of all MTR sites), non-native grasses struggle to survive because there's (a) no topsoil and (b) nothing to hold the water in at levels necessary to plant growth.

We don't call 'em "moonscapes" fer nothin'!

[TryToBeFlexible]

Studies show that the economic fortunes of a commuity correlate greatly with how the community treats LGBT people. If West Virginia truly wishes to lift itself out of poverty, and the powerlessnes of poverty that allows this type of eco-destruction to run rampant, then West Virginia must embrace a fiercely liberal agenda and stop demeaning its remaining LGBT citizens.
West Virginia is a beautiful place, physically, but for LGBT peoples, and other creative people who value LGBT peoples, it is polically and morally rather ugly and unattractive.
Get your act together West Virginia, and you will improve your future. Keep the same old hate politics, and you will remain mired in poverty.

[southernmamma]

What a powerful letter. It's incredible that we allow this to happen in our country. But we know the truth--if this type of crazy mining was taking place in a state like New York or California, it would be ended immediately.

I hope Sen. Byrd is listening.