2008 Woodie Awards
Shades of Green
Mountaintop removal: The disturbing effects of big coal business
Jessica Yanefski
Issue date: 3/28/08 Section: Opinions
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"Four years ago, I didn't even know what a tree-hugger was," he admits. He looks like the mountain everyman in his baseball cap and white T-shirt. A beer belly juts out over the waist of his jeans. It is the uniform of the American coal man-unpretentious and sturdy. These days, though, Wiley's face is worn and tired. His t-shirt of choice pleads for the children at home who need his help. He wears his battle on every inch of his body. Wiley, who is now a minor celebrity in the fight against coal in Appalachia, used to work in the coal fields himself. Yet, when his granddaughter, Kayla, started to get sick, everything changed.
His granddaughter's former school, Marsh Fork Elementary School, near Sundial, W. Va., is at the center of the battle between locals and Big Coal. The school sits 150 feet across the river from a coal silo, where processed coal is loaded onto rail cars and ushered to various parts of the country. Directly behind the silo is the Goals Coal Processing Plant. An earthen sludge dam rises above the plant. The dam holds nearly three billion tons of toxic mining waste perched 400 yards above the school.
Mining waste can contain heavy metals such as mercury, chromium, arsenic and boron. Unfortunately, this 22-year-old dam is leaking. The families of Marsh Fork students have reasons to worry. First of all, the dust from the processing plant is making children sick.
The results of a 2006 study were disheartening. It confirmed that dust from the plant was present in all areas of the school. Furthermore, it warned that inhalation of the particles posed a serious health hazard. The students and faculty were at risk of exposure to the coal dust. All in all, the study found 240 federal health violations at Marsh Fork. Kayla, now 12, started feeling very ill four years ago, when she was in fourth grade at the school.
"She was sick for about three days, already," he said. "One day, I picked her up from school, and she was just crying, saying the school was killing [those] kids. It was her tears that woke me up to this problem. I was on those mines before. I was part of the problem, too."
However, Wiley and his neighbors fear more than just the dust. They worry that the dam can break at any time, which could bury over 200 grammar school students in its wake. Sludge dam failures have happened before. Residents of the region also fear that chemicals used at the processing plant are floating in the air near the school's playground.
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