The report on the “Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster” (the WV mine “accident” in which 29 miners died) has been released. The list of violations found is long, but more telling was the discovery that the company has kept a second set of books, hidden from regulators, that listed all of the various issues. Of course, this tragedy is a legacy of the corporate welfare mentality of the previous administration. Like all welfare recipients, those corporations are screaming at the possible recision of those goodies. Exemption from safe workplace and environmental regulations is simply another handout to those producers, and thus their shareholders.
Meanwhile, back at the mine, the almost comic director of Massey (the mine owner) Don Blankenship, has resigned, much to the dismay of those who try to leaven these deadly topics. And Massey, in the great tradition of corporate 'Amerikan' escape from liability, has been acquired but another company. Of course, Blankenship and other execs have refused to testify, so as not to incriminate themselves.
And we go about our daily affairs, most of us not even aware of the Upper Big Branch and the 29 people that died in the underworld to bring us that black gold that powers our computers. Try to remember their loved ones and turn off the lights when you leave the room. And unplug the TV and cable box while you are at it, one of the largest electricity hogs in your house.
Showing posts with label Don Blankenship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Don Blankenship. Show all posts
30 June 2011
06 July 2010
Whitesville
4 July 2010
I’m in Whitesville, WV with Jim Hansen, the climate scientist, to attend Larry Gibson’s annual July 4 party. I’m here to do a portrait of Dr. Hansen, see Larry, and to go to his legendary fete. To entertain myself, I decided to bring an old Rollei f, truly one of the great cameras; it’s such a joy to shoot a little film. Remember black and white?
Larry is truly a modern David, squaring off against the goliath of king coal, personified by Don Blankenship, president of Massey Coal. To look at a satellite image, or better, to fly over Larry’s land is to laugh and cry simultaneously. An island of green rises from a despoiled expanse of regurgitated overburden from mountaintop removal mining. Modern mining processes, through mechanization, have inversed the human cost with environmental damage. Ironically, the corollary human toll is unemployment and decay of the communities that were supported by human-powered mining.
Resource wealth rarely benefits the populations in the rich place, those fortunes tend to be extracted to the same place whence went the resource. The people that remain are generally left with poverty, decaying infrastructure, and environmental nightmares.
Main Street, Whitesville is evidence of that pattern; of the few operative concerns were two funeral homes, a few stores (chain saws, floor coverings, five and dime), and of course a few churches. Most of the storefronts are haphazardly boarded, some with love notes written in the dust covering the windows. Dust near coal facilities is a tremendous health issue, and asthma tends to be high. Down the road is the Marsh Fork Elementary School, next to another Massey Coal processing plant. Above the school is an earthen dam holding millions of gallons of “slurry,” the chemical soup used to clean coal before it can be burned and continue its life cycle of destruction.
One can only imagine what Whitesville was like in its zenith, hard to picture all of the stores open and people on the sidewalks.
The people in Appalachia are some of the most vocal supporters of coal mining, and who can blame them? Their lives are at stake. If you lose you lose, but if you win, you really lose. Without coal they have no jobs, but with coal they have desecration, pollution, and asthma. Just down the road is Coal River Mountain, a summit steeped in legend and controversy. For years Massey pressed for permits to begin blasting apart the mountain for the coal underneath. The residents floated a proposal to build an array of windmills on the top, a solution that would have provided clean electricity and jobs forever, as opposed to the dirty and short-term plan of Massey, after which would remain a wasteland. Blasting began last year and destruction of the mountain is moving forward.
There is a better way. It won’t mean loss of jobs and decimation of the economy, to the contrary.
We must demand it.
I’m in Whitesville, WV with Jim Hansen, the climate scientist, to attend Larry Gibson’s annual July 4 party. I’m here to do a portrait of Dr. Hansen, see Larry, and to go to his legendary fete. To entertain myself, I decided to bring an old Rollei f, truly one of the great cameras; it’s such a joy to shoot a little film. Remember black and white?
Larry is truly a modern David, squaring off against the goliath of king coal, personified by Don Blankenship, president of Massey Coal. To look at a satellite image, or better, to fly over Larry’s land is to laugh and cry simultaneously. An island of green rises from a despoiled expanse of regurgitated overburden from mountaintop removal mining. Modern mining processes, through mechanization, have inversed the human cost with environmental damage. Ironically, the corollary human toll is unemployment and decay of the communities that were supported by human-powered mining.
Resource wealth rarely benefits the populations in the rich place, those fortunes tend to be extracted to the same place whence went the resource. The people that remain are generally left with poverty, decaying infrastructure, and environmental nightmares.
Main Street, Whitesville is evidence of that pattern; of the few operative concerns were two funeral homes, a few stores (chain saws, floor coverings, five and dime), and of course a few churches. Most of the storefronts are haphazardly boarded, some with love notes written in the dust covering the windows. Dust near coal facilities is a tremendous health issue, and asthma tends to be high. Down the road is the Marsh Fork Elementary School, next to another Massey Coal processing plant. Above the school is an earthen dam holding millions of gallons of “slurry,” the chemical soup used to clean coal before it can be burned and continue its life cycle of destruction.
One can only imagine what Whitesville was like in its zenith, hard to picture all of the stores open and people on the sidewalks.
The people in Appalachia are some of the most vocal supporters of coal mining, and who can blame them? Their lives are at stake. If you lose you lose, but if you win, you really lose. Without coal they have no jobs, but with coal they have desecration, pollution, and asthma. Just down the road is Coal River Mountain, a summit steeped in legend and controversy. For years Massey pressed for permits to begin blasting apart the mountain for the coal underneath. The residents floated a proposal to build an array of windmills on the top, a solution that would have provided clean electricity and jobs forever, as opposed to the dirty and short-term plan of Massey, after which would remain a wasteland. Blasting began last year and destruction of the mountain is moving forward.
There is a better way. It won’t mean loss of jobs and decimation of the economy, to the contrary.
We must demand it.
22 January 2010
ART TO ADVOCACY
22 January 2010
Last night, Bobby Kennedy Jr., the tireless defender of "purple mountain majesties," debated Don Blankenship, president of Massey Coal, the biggest practitioner of mountaintop removal coal mining. Mr. Kennedy was explaining the intricate interrelationship of jobs, energy security, and a healthy environment while Mr. Blankenship responded with simplistic sound bites about terrorism and crippling environmental regulations. These are complex issues that cannot be reduced to one-liners, and somehow the advocates of clean air and clean water must craft a set of key phrases that reach today's over-stimulated audience. Mr. Kennedy tried to explain the devastating effect that mountaintop removal has on the Appalachian hydrology, and in response, Mr. Blankenship held up a plastic bottle of clear looking water proclaiming that it would not pass EPA standards. Of course many of the most toxic substances can't be seen, smelled or tasted, but he didn't mention that. While Kennedy talked about the fact that burning coal is why our waterways are polluted with mercury, Blankenship responded that even were we to stop burning coal, everyone else's coal-burning practices would still poison our fish.
But we have to lead. America has always been out front, and we need to be again. To say that if we don't blast the mountains apart in Appalachia, "them damn Arabs" will attack us again, as Blankenship averred, is false, misleading, and a cheap appeal to the basest fears of Americans. Kennedy is right, our security will come from a future of clean energy, and that is one without coal. As he points out, the jobs in the coal industry are disappearing with mechanization (as Blankenship's piece of the pie grows ever larger.) Blankenship is raking in the cash while ex-miners in WV can't feed their kids or drink their water. But his one-liners about terrorists and "them damn unions" appeal to those looking for simple answers to complex problems.
And here's where art comes in: while the issues are complex and require lengthy explanations, blithely countered with a one liner about terrorism or pesky environmental regulations, a compelling image of destruction tells an irrefutable story. Those of us who want clean air, clean water, and a secure, prosperous future for our children have to get more adept at the tools and techniques that play to the modern media and short attention spans of Americans.
Last night, Bobby Kennedy Jr., the tireless defender of "purple mountain majesties," debated Don Blankenship, president of Massey Coal, the biggest practitioner of mountaintop removal coal mining. Mr. Kennedy was explaining the intricate interrelationship of jobs, energy security, and a healthy environment while Mr. Blankenship responded with simplistic sound bites about terrorism and crippling environmental regulations. These are complex issues that cannot be reduced to one-liners, and somehow the advocates of clean air and clean water must craft a set of key phrases that reach today's over-stimulated audience. Mr. Kennedy tried to explain the devastating effect that mountaintop removal has on the Appalachian hydrology, and in response, Mr. Blankenship held up a plastic bottle of clear looking water proclaiming that it would not pass EPA standards. Of course many of the most toxic substances can't be seen, smelled or tasted, but he didn't mention that. While Kennedy talked about the fact that burning coal is why our waterways are polluted with mercury, Blankenship responded that even were we to stop burning coal, everyone else's coal-burning practices would still poison our fish.
But we have to lead. America has always been out front, and we need to be again. To say that if we don't blast the mountains apart in Appalachia, "them damn Arabs" will attack us again, as Blankenship averred, is false, misleading, and a cheap appeal to the basest fears of Americans. Kennedy is right, our security will come from a future of clean energy, and that is one without coal. As he points out, the jobs in the coal industry are disappearing with mechanization (as Blankenship's piece of the pie grows ever larger.) Blankenship is raking in the cash while ex-miners in WV can't feed their kids or drink their water. But his one-liners about terrorists and "them damn unions" appeal to those looking for simple answers to complex problems.
And here's where art comes in: while the issues are complex and require lengthy explanations, blithely countered with a one liner about terrorism or pesky environmental regulations, a compelling image of destruction tells an irrefutable story. Those of us who want clean air, clean water, and a secure, prosperous future for our children have to get more adept at the tools and techniques that play to the modern media and short attention spans of Americans.
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