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.

INSIDE THE COAL MINE

8 April 2010

The reports of the mining disaster in West Virginia have an unreal quality, like newspaper headlines from a distant era; one in which workers were but slightly elevated from the class of serfs, and a few more dead or damaged would have little effect on the march of progress. We all feel the deepest sympathy for the families of the miners lost, and like the recent disaster in Haiti, donations and condolences will be sent, and the event soon forgotten.

{Angry invectives are sure to follow this BLOG}

The corporate owner of the mine (and its CEO) is a bad actor on many levels, from mine safety to environmental disregard. Their acts of corruption harken back to the Teapot Dome scandal in scope, and exude a disregard for law and community that invite disbelief. And speaking of tea, it is no secret that West Virginia voted overwhelmingly in favor of the previous administration, as a condoner of business corruption with its relaxed mine safety enforcement.

Meanwhile, New York City is enjoying summer weather in early April, which is a direct effect of the stuff for which those miners died.

STATE OF THE UNION

It’s hard not to love Obama. He’s handsome, smart, thoughtful, and seems to say the right things. And that smile when he’s waiting for the audience to get his joke is so cute.

But, when one listens to what is said (on the environment, anyway), shock should be the reaction. As a solution to our energy needs, he advocates: offshore drilling, “clean” coal, untapped natural gas deposits and nuclear. Those same words emanated from the mouth of his predecessor and we hated it. Offshore drilling will quickly despoil those marine habitats, overwhelming the already threatened fish populations. And of course more oil spills will be the norm. Clean coal doesn’t exist when one examines the life-cycle of the fuel, period. Carbon capture and sequestration don’t exist at present, and tests indicate that they will consume 25% of the energy produced by the fuel they're supposed to clean. And who’s to say that the carbon will stay buried in the old mine shafts they want to use for the purpose? Nothing else does.


"Untapped natural gas" means deposits like the Marcellus Shale formation, the extraction of which has been an environmental disaster from the first drilling. And nuclear, even if we could do it without the releases and accidents, is highly dangerous to plant neighbors. The answer is ruthless conservation and low-impact technologies. Now.

His appeal to bipartisanism is well and good, but government won’t do squat unless we, the people demand it. Stick your head out the window and shout it.

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.

Music and Industrial Scars Save Mountains

13 November 2009

Monday night, NRDC, Gibson Guitars, EmmyLou Harris, and her manager Ken Levitan hosted an event to raise awareness in the country music community about mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR). The first step in the lengthy trail of devastation caused by the use of coal as a power source, is the practice of blowing the top off of the mountain, dumping the blasted earth into the adjacent valley, extracting the coal, planting grass seed, and repeat.

The goal of the event was to recruit more country musicians to the cause, as they reach a wide audience outside of the “environmentalist crowd.”

Industrial Scars images of MTR were a central part of the event, as were two custom-made guitars with my images of Coal River Mountain, the destruction of which has just begun.

This is the second event Ms. Harris has hosted on this issue, and the list of notable musicians is growing: Randy Travis, Ben Sollee, Big Kenny Alphin, Delbert McClinton, Dierks Bentley, Gloriana, James Otto, J.D. Souther, Matraca Berg, Jeff Hanna, Michelle Branch, Kid Rock, Patty Griffin, and Rodney Crowell were all there.

Bravo to them all, and if you are a fan, send them a note of applause for their work on this horrific issue.

Bobby Kennedy spoke eloquently (as always) about the link between our cultural heritage and the environment, a link that is particularly relevant in this case as the roots of country music are in the Appalachians.
Coal is the source of half of our electricity, and billed as a cheap energy source. But the reason it’s cheap when your electric bill comes is that you have already paid for it with your high taxes that subsidize it. Some of the 2005 coal subsidies (out of your pocket) include:
$1.612 billion in tax credits to invest in new coal power plants
$1.147 billion in tax breaks for coal power plants to install pollution control equipment
$1.8 billion of taxpayer money to help build a new fleet of coal power plants
$1.137 billion of taxpayer money to help make coal power a cost-competitive source of power generation (there’s a joke on us).
$90 million to research ways to sequester carbon dioxide emitted from coal power plants.
And this is just the beginning.

Is this the way you want your money to be spent, to subsidize global warming and mercury poisoning?

Green Mountain College, VT

11 November 2009

Some people write with facility and grace, words flowing from their fingers seemingly without effort. Others, like myself, struggle, stare, chew the inside of the cheek, and generally suffer until something comes to life.

Green Mountain College in Vermont invited me to be artist-in-residence for a week, my destination after the Nashville NRDC/Gibson/Mountaintop Removal event (more on that in a later post). I've just arrived on a brisk November night, had a delicious vegetarian meal in Rutland, and was deposited on the campus. The thought of dialoging with students and describing what I do and why is exciting is weighing on me. The focus of my work is getting people to change behavior, realize the emminent danger, and participate in a new economy. GMC is a college that made the decision to "go green" in the nineties and has not looked back. So, here I will be "preaching to the converted" but we all still have so far to go, and will only get there by constantly refining and tweaking our methods. In spite of the energy audits that have been done here, I'm sitting in a library with lots of lights on, fighting the temptation to turn them off.

Is it possible to change our behavior before the situation gets drastic?

Destruction of Coal River Mountain

Coal River Mountain before blasting.©2008 J Henry Fair

The long dreaded destruction via Mountaintop Removal of Coal River Mountain has begun, all to line the pockets of big coal and feed our heedless demand for electricity. This in spite of a viable proposal to place windmills on the peak that would provide energy for generation with no carbon footprint. Coal is the biggest single cause of global warming as well as a slew of poisonous elements released into the environment. Worried about the mercury in your fish? Turn off the lights.
The Appalachian mountains in West Virginia are home to some of the most beautiful and biodiverse forests in the world. The destruction of these mountains, forests and streams is one of the most egregious examples of our short-sighted demand for energy: a folly that is being repeated ad nauseam around the planet.
Like children, we want what we want and ignore the consequences. So that we can drive our SUV’s and leave our lights and air conditioners on, we blithely sacrifice the systems that sustain us with clean air and water. An even greater lunacy is our ostrich approach to climate change, an issue that is a clear and present danger to us all. Coastal areas around the world will be under water soon, rain patterns will change wreaking havoc on agriculture; and hungry, desperate people will descend on the “haves” and demand their share. And we will have to kill them. This is your children’s world.

Pay no attention.
Get in your car and drive.
Don’t forget to leave the lights on.

SOUTH CAROLINA 09

8 July 2009

I come from the South, and am proud of my heritage. It is a wonderful place with a natural warmth and generosity unknown in the rest of the USA. No place or people have clean hands throughout history, and my home is no exception. My sense is that the issues that plague us are all interrelated, and I count myself fortunate that I can devote myself to fighting the injustices that concern me the most.

Much as I love the South, the environmental regulations there are some of the worst in the country, thus industry has used it as a haven of permissiveness and reduced costs. Time to wake up. Early in the year I began discussions with my friend Hume from SouthWings, a group of pilots that fly environmentalists and legislators to see issues first hand from the air, about doing a flight in South Carolina. We are both very concerned about the consequences of burning coal for electricity, and have done numerous flights together over Mountaintop Removal (MTR) areas. Our other objective was to provide images to the Coastal Conservation League of whatever they are currently fighting. These are both fantastic organizations that deserve your support.

Coal is bad from the beginning to the end: the MTR extraction process is destroying vast stretches of some of America’s final virgin forest and watershed areas, the combustion is one of the primary causes of global warming and releases more toxics and heavy metals into our environment than I have breath to mention, and lastly is the fly ash issue. If you don’t know about what happened at the TVA coal plant in Kingston, TN just after Christmas, you should: the largest industrial disaster in US history. When coal is burned, the exhaust coming up the smokestack is laden with tremendous amounts of the nastiest stuff known to man. The energy companies are required to scrub that effluent, the most common method being to spray a “slurry” of gypsum through it which captures much of the particulate matter. The resulting mixture is known as fly ash, and its disposal is essentially unregulated- generally power plats keep it in unlined “impoundments” close to the plant.

“Why is this important to me?” you might wonder. Glad you asked. Chances are pretty good that one of the 800 coal fired generators in the USA is close to your home; and chances are they have a big wad of fly ash slurry separated from the water supply by a poorly made earthen dam. (Coal generators are always built next to a water body to supply them with the fresh water they need for cooling). So, like the unfortunate residents who live downstream of the TVA power plant in Kingston, you are in danger of having that nastiness spill into the waterway near you and even if it does not cover your house with toxic waste, you will never eat the fish from, swim in, or enjoy that water body again. And let’s not even talk about the possibility of all those toxins contaminating your well, even if they don’t spill.

So back to the airplane. Hume was delayed leaving Asheville by a mechanical issue, and then had to fly the Nature Conservancy on a quick flight, so we were much later off the ground than I had hoped. Our first site is King Tract in Awendaw, a large undeveloped parcel that CCL is working to save. From there we went up to Lake Moultrie which has several Santee-Cooper coal fired power plants. The first had some really interesting fly ash, but the second was nothing short of amazing- a behemoth of belching, spewing global warming and toxic waste. The fly ash dump was spectacular: variegated tunnels of different liquids. I love it when the subject is simultaneously sinister and beautiful, and a toxic nightmare. Fly ash is a clear and present danger- one more essential reason not to burn coal.

From the Lake Moultrie area we navigate south to the North Charleston Industrial zone. Hume checks in with the tower, as this is getting near to the Charleston airport, and the controller is obviously stressed because of the traffic volume. It is against the law to fly around power plants, and pilots that are willing to do it must always be on the right side of the air traffic controllers. The Nucor Steel Plant is close to our position, and still out of the traffic zone, so we circle, photographing the piles of rusted steel and various minerals.

Suddenly I spot something on fire, ask Hume to circle, and it turns out to be a machine with a large bowl of molten metal dumping its contents into a pit. It dumps once, and only a bit comes out, then backs off, goes to an adjacent pit and trys again. Suddenly the entire contents come out like a volcanic eruption and cause a virtual explosion, the likes of which neither of us have ever seen. To the east is the Williams Coal Plant, and though I have shot it before, I want to again, but it is closer to the airport, and Hume tells me that the tower is starting to divert traffic around us, a situation that clearly unnerves him. Oh the disappointment. Also on that side of the river are the Mead Westvaco Paper Mill, North Charleston incinerator, and various other sites on my list. Can’t do it all in this life, I guess.

COURAGE AND HERITAGE - The MTR Protests

25-06-2009

On Tuesday, thirty people were arrested outside of Charleston, WV for protesting mountain-top removal mining. In the American media, such protestors are portrayed as fringe elements of society, vocificating against some arcane issue of little interest or importance. This is so far from reality, it is laughable. One of those arrested was James Hansen, the most knowledgeable man in the world on climate change issues. He is the NASA scientist who, in the 70s, predicted the climate situations that are occurring today, and his predictions for tomorrow are frightening. Dr. Hansen has lost faith in the will of our government to address the issue and has decided his only recourse is to truck his 89-year-old carcass out to be arrested and face the violence of the bumpkin miners who live in terror of losing the few jobs that big coal still provides. Not only are these “protestors” standing on the same philosophical and ideological grounds as those that founded our country, and not only are they the among the few that are looking out for the future of your children, but they are patriots in anther way. So much of what we are as a country and a people is defined by our natural heritage; one can hardly hum the bars of a patriotic song without it bringing to mind the shining seas or waves of grass or mountain home. But these for-profit industries are allowed to despoil that heritage, not to mention the resources our children will need for their survival. Can we pay attention? Most of us live near the coast; if we don’t change our behavior, our homes will be under water. And more alarming, all those folks who are crowded into coastal areas in third world countries will come swarming to us in the “developed world” looking to be fed.

We are sliding down into a crisis, and we are worried about the stock market? This stuff is real, which is why one of the most knowledgeable and intelligent scientists in the world is willing to get himself to WV and get in harm’s way to draw attention to this issue.

Mountain-top removal is the practice of blowing the top off of the mountain, dumping the blasted earth into the adjacent valley, taking the coal, and planting grass seed, and repeat.

It is the first step in the lengthy trail of devastation caused by the use of coal as a power source. Let’s turn off the lights and pray for Dr. Hansen.

This is an image of an MTR excavation in West Virginia, not far from the location of the protest.