“Don’t drink the water!” cautioned my new housemate. Between heavy metals that don’t boil off and runoff from strip mining, our kitchen sink spewed cancer.
Like many other Blue Devils, I had just arrived in a new community for the summer with the rosy expectation of changing some lives and single-handedly improving the local standards of living. Yet unlike others, I hadn’t had a long commute. This was no tropical rainforest. This was no small developing nation, nor a village without shoes, electricity or Walmarts. I was in Whitesburg, Ky.
Appalachia has long suffered at the hands of extreme poverty and subservience to coal companies, which provide 14 percent of total jobs in Kentucky alone. The Environmental Protection Agency places restrictions on mining permits and advocacy groups speak out against mining practices, but coal continues to supply around 45 percent of U.S. electricity. Driving down Highway 23 through southwest Virginia and eastern Kentucky, you’re either in the majority and have a “Friends of Coal” bumper sticker, or you very visibly don’t.
Maria Gunnoe is one of those advocates whose bumper is empty. (Or maybe she has one of the “Topless Mountains are Obscene” stickers.) In 2009 she won the Goldman Environmental prize for forcing the closure of several mines in West Virginia and bulking up regulation of the industry. Since winning the award and the $150,000 prize money, Gunnoe has continued to seek repair of the damage inflicted by mountaintop removal near her home. The well water at her home is completely contaminated by coal run-off, resulting in orange-ish red tap water running from her sink, and part of her prize money was devoted to bringing clean city water out to her home. Gunnoe also went to Washington, D.C., to deliver a presentation on the environmental impact of mining in West Virginia, particularly the effects on health and water pollution.
One of the most poignant images in her presentation showed a five-year-old sitting in a bathtub with orange water running out of the faucet, but Gunnoe was quickly asked to remove the picture by committee staffers. Their claim? The photograph constituted child pornography.
After my summer in Whitesburg, I can’t say I’m surprised by the outrageous accusation. The fight between coal and anti-coal advocates is extreme and condemning, a unique intensity I got to see first-hand when I attended a pro-coal rally in Abingdon, Va. The day opened with a prayer and ended with a denunciation of the God-awful, fire-breathing EPA. Everything was done to brand coal as American, as true morality and religion and as the very embodiment of family values.
It’s incredibly easy to paint a picture of coal companies maliciously taking advantage of Appalachia, but coal does provide what is basically the only economic impetus for the region. Lacking opportunities in tourism, agriculture, services and manufacturing, cities and towns throughout Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia would collapse if the mines were to close today. Coal combats poverty in the region—the infamous Appalachian poverty plagues the unemployed, not the coal miners who make around $60,000 a year on average.
But the rally and the representatives who sought to silence Gunnoe with allegations of child pornography didn’t highlight the importance of coal to a struggling region. Instead, their tactics focused on vilifying anyone who opposed their values. George W. Bush highlighted this strictness of mentality when he said of foreign policy, “You’re either with us, or against us.” Coal companies establish an extreme position to acquire support. You are either pro-mountaintop removal in all situations on all mountains, or you hate electricity, the average Kentucky worker and, let’s not forget, America.
On the other end the EPA refuses to compromise, crafting mining permit regulations that all but prohibit the expansion of mining and development of new mines. Compromises can be made that consider both economic and environmental objectives, but both sides are allowing the door to close.
Any and all attempts to address the myriad issues affecting coal country meet the same downfall: distrust. If anything, organizations, and especially media organizations, that seek to address welfare concerns arouse local suspicions. I often felt myself profiled as one of the “out-of-town liberal hippy coal-hating heathens” who so often arrive in the region, despite my work having absolutely nothing to do with this highly politicized issue. As is often the case with partisan politics, there is an unfortunately antagonistic mindset. This extreme position leads to extreme convictions that trickle down to the population at large. You’re either waving the flag of coal. Or you’re in the production of child porn.
Lydia Thurman is a Trinity sophomore.
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