MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Coal country is hurting, and the people who live there want the whole nation to know it.
Thousands of miners have been laid off this year across Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia, many with little hope of getting their jobs back as power plants and the coal mines that once fed them shut down. Now the families, friends and business operators who depend on those miners are planning a multi-state show of solidarity they hope will be heard in Washington, D.C., and beyond.
“No one really hears our voices down here and knows what’s going on,” says 28-year-old coal miner’s wife Tracy Miller of Keokee, Va.
She’s working to change that.
If all goes as planned, huge crowds wearing miners’ stripes and fluorescent “United for Coal” T-shirts will line up Oct. 13 along U.S. Highway 23 from Big Stone Gap, Va., through Paintsville, Ky., and toward Chillicothe, Ohio. They will stretch north on U.S. 119 from Pikeville, Ky., toward Williamson, W.Va.
Some call it “Hands Across Coal Country.” In Virginia, it’s a “Prayer Chain.” But everyone knows what it’s for: It’s to show the rest of America the people behind the headlines from a faraway place.
“Hopefully it’s an inspiring and uplifting event for the people who were laid off,” says 32-year-old Shana Lucas, wife of a coal miner in Wise, Va. “It’s just a way as a community to say, `We can’t stop anything. We can’t do anything to prevent this from happening to you, but we can stand up for you. We can form a line three states long to show you we care.'”
The industry was already enduring a seasonal downturn after a warm winter that kept demand for coal low. It faces growing competition from cheap, abundant natural gas. And it was struggling with the Environmental Protection Agency’s crackdown on permitting for mountaintop removal mines and tougher clean-water standards.
The subject of coal and miners being laid off branches off into so many other issues. for starters, I can remember the last vestiges of home coal use. I remember when my maiden aunt finally put in an oil furnace rather than that poor old lady going down to the coal bin and shoveling in the nasty dirty fuel. My husband remembers the same thing in his parents’ home. they had bought an old farm house when he was growing up. Nothing says filth like coal. It is dirty, dusty, and frankly, a pain in the tail because someone had to go feed the furnace.
Coal is tough on the environment. It burns dirty, despite efforts to make clean coal. Just mining coal is a killer–a killer of the environment and a killer of miners. The different methods of getting that black sedimentary rock out of the earth continue to pock and gouge the earth with every mine or excavation point. Mountain tops are carved out, creeks are filled with debris, and horrible scarring is left in its wake. There is no environmentally sound way to mine coal (or much of anything else) but coal seems to be the worst. Coal mines are frought with peril because of dangers of gas explosions, cave ins and gas leaks.
The real victims were seem to be the people who live in the area and who work the mines. Most have pride in their work but often hope their sons leave the area and find work elsewhere. The mining families are dependent. Often they know no other line of work. Most fiercely defend coal mining. Its not just a job, its a way of life. It seems that all these ideas are on a collision course.
About 50% of coal miners belong to unions. Up until the 70s many more were union members It seems that the union vote and the coal miners are also on a collision course as miners eye those politicians who appear to be more coal friendly. This is the area that baffles me. Those who hate unions seem to turn a blind eye to UMW and other unions that miners join. When miners decry not having a job or potential lay off notices, many conservatives jump in their camp in support of the coal miner. If this same worker was a teacher, we would be hearing “get a different job.” There just seems to be more respect for fossil fuels than for education and those who do the grunt work in each. I hope I am wrong about that.
Big Coal has signed a contract with Mr Dale Earnhardt Jr for him to push Clean Coal. Smart move.
Cause if NASCAR pushes something I’m pretty keen on buying it.
This is an example of an industry whose time has passed, like the horse and buggy or the transistor radio. There is NO such thing as clean coal! It’s an environmental disaster to remove AND to burn. Carbon sequestration is science fiction. With mechanization and mining methods such as mountaintop removal that are designed to limit labor, the amount of people employed for each ton mined has dropped precipitously since the 1980’s. The total people employed in mining in WVa is in the thousands. Just like when manufacturing jobs on assembly lines went away, these folks need to be offered retraining for jobs in clean, renewable energy or elsewhere. With cheap natural gas replacing coal in power plants for the foreseeable future, coal will only be useful for Paul Ryan to put in Tiny Tim’s stocking at Christmas!
Most miners are not in a union. The majority of mines operating today are non union.
Union mines are far safer statistically than non union mines. Just under 50% of coal miners are union. the shift apparently stated in the 70s and 80’s.
There apparently is a break down somewhere. I didn’t realize the unions had diminished as much as they have.
How do you feel about unions, subtle turtle?