The Free Seeker

E-Newsletter of the Unitarian Fellowship of Huntington

April 21, 2010

Program for Sunday, April 25, 2010

Jim Lewis and the West Virginia Patriots for Peace

            Our District Director, when she visited, informed us that the Denomination was struggling with the question of whether to become a peace church.  This Sunday we shall have the opportunity to advance our thinking on pacifism in general and the Afghanistan War in particular.  Do we want to sacrifice the flower of our American youth to support a sassy satrap?  Come, let us reason together next Sunday and learn the particular perspective of Jim Lewis and his organization. 

Future Sunday Programs

May   2:     Open Discussion

May   9:     Jacqueline Muth:  "Occupied Minds in Occupied Palestine"

May 16:     The Buddha:  Episode I

May 23:     Jenny Kerr:  "Autobiography"

May 30:     Fellowship Pot Luck Picnic

June   6:     Open Discussion

June 13:     Ed Necco:  "Secular Humanism"

June 20:     The Buddha:  Episode II

Retrospective of Previous Sunday

            Bill Price of the Sierra Club spoke to us mainly about mountaintop removal coal mining.  Bill's father was an underground coal miner at a time when the United Mine Workers were at the peak of their strength.  To say his father was an underground miner is to say that he did not engage in either mountaintop removal mining or long wall mining.  Instead of following his father directly into the mines Bill got an education and became involved in mining obliquely when he joined a company making conveyer belts.  However, he soured on the coal industry after a while for a number of reasons. 

            People in mining communities were low on the scale in both income and education.  Also, in many mining areas he noticed wells going dry accompanied by an increase in water pollution.  When he started out energy was 54% coal.  Today it is 38%.  A crisis of conscience drove him from the coal industry into the arms of the Sierra Club. 

            The Sierra Club was founded in 1892 because of people being differently impacted by the environment:  in Detroit people of color, in the West Navajo and Hopi tribes.  This mostly concerned water pollution.  Eventually an Environmental Justice Program was started as part of the Sierra Club structure, and in 2002 Bill Price began running it.  He said his work was 98% coal. 

            The primary issue on his agenda is mountaintop removal, a process which takes the mountain from the coal instead of the coal from the mountain.  This operation pushes a mountaintop into a valley.  Then what  have you got?  Flattsville.  This ain't how Mountain Mama's s'pposed to look.  Not only is it damaging both visually and aquatically, but the stripping away of trees tends to cause flooding and mudslides.  Bill Price says that it is currently impossible to get environmental justice through the courts.  He says that the villain of the piece is not just Massey, an obvious choice, but the entire coal industry. 

            The Sierra Club is working with the Environmental Protection Agency on new guidelines.  The key guideline, if enforced, will control mountaintop removal.  In passing he called the Army Corps of Engineers the worst of agencies.  The new Clean Water Act states that you will not fill the water with mining waste.  There is also the Appalachian Restoration Act.  The House bill has 170 cosponsors, and the Senate bill has 10.  Nick Rahall is pledged to block the Appalachian Restoration Act.  The prohibition against dumping in streams will effectively stop mountaintop removal.  However, Senator Jay Rockefeller is also in the pocket of the coal industry. 

            As for other issues with coal, long wall mining cuts a slice through the mountain thereby causing the mountaintop to slump down.  This can be compared to the traditional  mining, which leaves supports (including some of the coal) in the mine after withdrawal.  The Upper Big Branch Mine used the long wall method, which led to accidents. 

            Mining impacts on homes leaving cracks, but the burden of proof is on the homeowner, who needs to show before and after photographs. 

            Appalachia has a tradition of not voting people out of office, which makes a political solution difficult. 

            Price's message:  we need to transition to other types of energy .  Fracture (or fracking) to obtain natural gas is already here, and this tends to pollute the surrounding soil. 

            Scrubbers in smokestacks displace but do not eliminate the pollution problem, because the stuff that doesn't go out the smokestack has to be stored in landfills.  He says there will be mining for the next 40-45 years.  Every energy source has an impact.  For example, the electrical power grid is not the most efficient way to get electricity;  solar panels are.  The number of people employed in the coal industry is declining every day.  How do we transform Appalachia?  Coal never has been the answer.  Will
Appalachia become involved in a new approach?  We must hold public officials accountable.  Who will replace Senator Byrd?  Price suggests former Governor Stapleton as a possible choice.  There is a bill impending to categorize coal waste as hazardous material.  We need to pass it.