West Virginia Coal Project - Day 5

Today is the penultimate day of our effort to gain a more accurate view of coal mining and its effect on WV’s economy and culture, both past and present. We visited a surface mine run by Coal-Mac, a subsidiary of Arch Coal. This mine site was an example of a coal company running a surface mine responsibly. While it had the appearance of destroying the landscape irretrievably, nothing could be further from the truth. This company used the latest technology to monitor every process in the removal of the coal and the reclamation the land afterwards. This company began the process of reclaiming the land immediately after all the minable coal had been removed. Reclamation of the land really began when the overburden was removed and relocated in the head of the adjoining valley in terraced layers to minimize soil erosion and stream damage. Using this method of reclamation allowed the disturbed land to recover far more quickly and to restore the former diversity of life that existed before the coal removal. At the Joe Knob reclaimed mining site, the diversity of species had not returned forty years after the coal removal and still had only a few species living there. At the Cow Creek site there was a wide diversity of species present only 2-3 years after mining the coal. After eight years the land had recovered to the point where you could not tell the land had been mined at all. This changed my view of surface mining and gave me hope that mining and tourism can exist side-by-side when both sides of the issue act responsibly, reasonably, and cooperatively. This would allow both sides to flourish and maximize the benefits to the people of West Virginia and minimize the effects to the environment.   

WV Coal Project - Day 3

Today we visited an active surface mine called Joe Knob that included an area that had been mined and reclaimed in the 1970's. An invasive species had been planted as land cover that actively discouraged other plant species. This was a problem because it prevented other species from moving in and biodiversity was reduced. This prevented the land from recovering so the food web was not fully developed after 40 years. It was raining so runoff was visible and highlighted the effort to return clean water to the watershed. Storage tanks with sodium hydroxide were located above settling ponds to neutralize the acid in the runoff water from the mine site. The water that finally comes off the mine site is sediment-free with a pH of about 7. The next place visited was the ruins of a coal town on the New River called Nuttallburg. This town was a twin to another coal town called Kaymoor just across the river. These coal towns and coal mines were constructed from timber harvested in the immediate area. These two now abandoned towns were once thriving communities with diverse populations living and working on both sides of the river. There was no reclamation effort to restore the land to its original state when the coal ran out and the towns were abandoned in the early 1950's. However, nature has done a remarkable job in restoring the health of the ecosystem without human intervention. The water in this area was sampled and found to have a quality that ranged from moderate to high quality. This quality may have been negatively affected by heavy rains that had fallen earlier in the day. This would have increased turbidity and total dissolved solids in our sample. Samples taken over several days would have corrected this problem. The pictures below were taken from Joe Knob, Nuttallburg, and New RiverGorge.

Coal Project - Day 2

We checked water quality at Yellow Creek in Canaan Valley. Dissolved oxygen, dissolved solids(conductivity), pH, temperature, and turbidity were the categories checked. The water quality was better than we expected largely because the pH was higher at 6.1 than anticipated. The overall water quality was moderately good. The next place we visited was where coke ovens were once used to prepare coal for use in the production of coal. These ovens have been abandoned and is now an historical site pprotected by archeology laws. The next site we sampled was located at Douglas Falls on the Blackwater River. This site is an example of iron pyrite entering a stream and a bacteria called thiobacillus, a chemoautotroph, thrives in the environment. Sulfuric acid is produced with iron collecting on the rocks and streambed. This causes the streambed and banks to appear orange or rust-colored. This rust is called yellowboy. The water quality was moderate to low due to acid mine runoff and blowouts from flooded abandoned. The pictures are of Yellow Creek and Douglas Falls.

Opening Day

This is the first day of our fact-finding mission to learn about coal in West Virginia. Our first stop was at a wind turbine farm offering an alternative to fossil fuels like coal. Bonnie Conner and I calculated the angular velocity of turbine blades and found the speed to be around 130 mph. We saw first hand the longterm damage to streams and watersheds in the town of Thomas, WV. The high sulfur content of the coal in this area leads to acid mine drainage and death to streams affected. I hope to discover more positive effects of coal mining than I have seen in my previous travels around WV.

Coal's Net Contribution to the WV Economy

Supporters of coal mining in WV are quick to point out the positive contributions to WV's economy. Those numbers often overlook the true cost of mining coal in WV. The destruction of our roads, the contamination of our streams, the damage to people's health, and the loss of quality of life are ignored or understated. While it must be a part of the economic life of WV, we must be sure to allocate all the costs and be sure the price of coal is not exceeded by the costs of mining that coal. Absentee ownership of the coal and the disregard coal companies seem to have about these concerns should make WV citizens wary. 150 years of mining coal in WV has not led to diverse economic development and has increased the dependency on coal. Sooner or later we must change coal from an extraction industry to a value-added industry where well-paid jobs would be growing and not shrinking. This will allow us to take advantage of our coal without all the external costs that we are currently incurring.   

Big Stick Coal Camp - Extinct

Big Stick, WV was a mining community owned by the Pemberton Coal and Coke Co. The town was named in honor of Teddy Roosevelt who believed in walking softly and carrying a "big stick".  In 1942 Lillybrook Coal Co. took over operations. There were schools for white and black kids, and a company store. Mark Twain High School was known as the Authors and excelled in football, basketball, and baseball. The mines closed in 1951, and the community was gradually abandoned throughout the 1950s, with the last family moving out in 1960. Around this time photographer Earl Palmer took this picture of the few company houses remaining in the abandoned coal camp of Big Stick. (courtesy of Virginia Tech Imagebase)

Today these tipple foundations are some of the only evidence of the mining camp named Big Stick. (January 2002 photo)

Work Cited:

http://www.coalcampusa.com/sowv/gulf/gulf_creek/winding_gulf_creek.htm

http://www.wvculture.org/goldenseal/Fall99/marktwainhs.html

Would a Sane Person Be a Coal Miner?

After listening to a college professor describe what is involved in mining coal underground, I wonder why anyone would do it. Working in an environment with lung-threatening dust, life-threatening machinery, and with potential explosions is not my idea of a reasonable occupation. Working in a crouch or on your knees with 30 pounds of equipment makes the whole scenario seem like the old USSR's gulag system.