Online resources on coal and surface mining

The RU Mining Study team has been combing through various websites that provide information on coal, coal mining, using coal to produce gas, surface mining, and other topics. The following websites collect voices from across the spectrum, including coal industry representatives and environmental groups. This list is by no means comprehensive -- indeed, it merely suggests how complex the topic of coal surface mining is. These are presented in no particular order:

• "Coal: Delivering Sustainable Development"- from the World Coal Institute
• "Climate Change and the Potential of Coal Gasification" from Geotimes
• Using Coal Mine Ventilation air as Fuel - from Gizmag
• The Coal Resource - A Comprehensive Overview of Coal - World Coal Institute
• Statement to the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, by Michael Calaghan, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection
  
• Coal-Fired Power Plant schematic - from the Tennessee Valley Authority
• "Cleaning up coal" - from the U.S. Department of Energy
• "Moving the Mountains: An Exploration of Mountaintop Removal Mining" - from The Roanoke Times
  
• "Dirty Coal Power" - from the Sierra Club
• "Moving Mountains" - by Erik Reece, Orion Magazine
  
• "Appalachian Mountaintop Removal" - from GoogleEarth
• "End Mountaintop Removal" - from ILoveMountains.Org
  

the other side

Dear group,

The other day, I had a rather spirited discussion with a friend named Ben who I knew was a geologist and miner in West VA. He's a local born and raised in far southwest Virginia. What I didn't know was that he did the kind of surface mining that this project researches. To my horror, he was describing a closing for next Tuesday with Conoco-Phillips for two mountain areas that he owns on the Kentucky-West VA border. He plans to sell those two areas for surface mining. He argued that jobs for the local people will be provided for the next 15 years and that this company had a good safety record and that employees were union. He also believed that the power was needed for Virginia, D.C. and other areas on the East coast so he thought he was doing a great service. I made the sorts of arguments you might expect but they fell on deaf ears.

He might be a good speaker for us if we could keep the conversation polite and courteous. This just highlighted for me the complexity of this problem.

Ginny Weisz

"Living Next To Coal" radio program

Public Radio International's show Living on Earth aired a program called "Living Next To Coal" on July 18. "Living Next To Coal" featured interviews with residents of Sylvester, West Virginia, which is next to a large coal pile that coal company Massey Energy covered with a geodesic dome after a lawsuit by residents of Sylvester. It's also situated below a large sludge pond. Members of the Surface Mining Research Project flew over Sylvester with a pilot from Southwings a few weeks ago and took these pictures.

Geodesic dome intended to keep coal dust down beside Sylvester, WV.
Photo by Theresa Burriss, flight courtesy of Southwings.

Sludge pond above Sylvester, WV. Note geodesic dome in upper corner.
Photo by Theresa Burriss, flight courtesy of Southwings.

For a complete transcript of "Living Next to Coal, click here.

Research Project Team expands

RU Surface Mining Research Project Director Jim Werth announced that more folks have joined the Project Research team. In addition to faculty and staff from the RU units listed in the previous post, the team now includes members of RU's Anthropology Program, RU's Biology Department, and RU's Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Others joining the team include several RU alumni, several regional journalists, RU grad students, and faculty and staff from three regional colleges and universities.

Surface Mining Multidisciplinary Research Project

The issue of surface mining (which includes “strip mining” and “mountaintop removal”) is bitterly contested in Appalachia. Coal companies and their investors want to make as much profit as possible and the general public wants inexpensive energy, whereas environmental advocates want to protect the mountains and advocates for miners want to replace the jobs that have been eliminated. Meanwhile, residents in the coal-mining areas of Appalachia are being directly and indirectly impacted but have had only limited say in the debates and the discussion of the effects on them appear to have been based largely on anecdotal accounts rather than empirical research.

The primary purposes of this research project include:

• Providing opportunities for Radford University faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students to personally examine surface mining sites and related areas and have preliminary discussions with stakeholders;
• Providing the grant director, Dr. James L. Werth, Jr. time to explore the literature, travel to affected regions, collect preliminary data, and develop relationships; and
• Beginning the process of collaborating across campus and across the region on these matters.

The project therefore integrates all four areas of scholarship outlined by Ernest Boyer: discovery (faculty and student research), integration (multidisciplinary focus), application/engagement (working toward solutions of a consequential problem), and teaching (providing material to integrate into and enhance teaching and learning).

As the Director of the Radford University Psy.D. Program, the grant director has attempted to build collaborative relationships across campus and in the community/region. He has also discussed the rural and community/social justice emphases of the Psy.D. Program on campus and across the region. One of the outgrowths of these efforts at communication and collaboration is a graduate level social justice course that was co-taught with an Appalachian Studies faculty member (Dr. Theresa Burriss). As part of the course, Dr. Burriss arranged for an all-day trip to a surface mining site and opportunities to interact with miners and local residents. One of the issues that became clear to the grant director after this trip was the many different disciplines that had expertise related to surface mining, as well as the complicated issues associated with the practice. In order to provide a comprehensive picture of the impact of surface mining, it seems vital to involve experts from many fields and include the various stakeholders in the discussion so that all sides can have their voices heard. An initial call for collaborators led to staff, faculty, and students from the following Radford University units:

• Appalachian Studies
• Communications
• Criminal Justice
• English
• Geography
• International Education Center
• McConnell Library
• Media Studies
• Nursing
• Psychology
• Recreation, Parks, and Tourism
• Sociology
• Sponsored Programs
  

In order to provide grant group members with the first-hand information necessary to allow them to become invested in the project, a trip to a surface mining site has been arranged for all day August 22. Former miners and community members have been invited to participate in this visit in order to provide first-hand accounts of the issues from their perspective. Further, grant team members will participate in flyovers, conducted by Southwings.

If you are interested in joining the research team or have resources to share, please contact grant director Dr. James L. Werth, Jr. by phone (540-831-6817) or e-mail (jwerth@radford.edu). Please note that participation is not limited to current Radford University faculty, staff, and students.