West Virginias Greatest Resource: Water

Yes, I said water, not coal. At a time when other states have to ration water, and the water wars are beginning, our state is blessed with untold amounts of water streams, creeks, lakes, rivers, waterfalls a seemingly never-ending supply of this life-giving resource.

Yet, something ugly is happening here. An out-of-control industry, with no regard for the people or the environment of this beautiful state, is wreaking havoc on our water sources.

It violates the Clean Water Act recklessly, burying hundreds of headwaters, poisoning our creeks, rivers and lakes with the byproducts of coal: arsenic, selenium, mercury, sludge, and many other contaminants.

All this in the name of electric power, coal, and jobs. Yet, all the electricity in the world and all the jobs in the world will be absolutely worthless without clean safe water with which to drink, cook and bathe.

The mountaintop removal method of mining coal is one of the main reasons why our water sources are being devastated.

If the industry really cared about jobs and the miners, it would go back to underground mining until the coal is gone.

It could provide many, many more jobs by going underground, for in mountaintop removal mining, the machines do all the work. The industry could use the money it spends on its misleading commercials to provide more safety for the men underground. Just maybe, it could be persuaded to enforce the laws in place to protect the people and the environment.

If our governor and legislators were not so totally cowed by the coal industry, they would be putting into place legislation to protect our water.

If we had a Department of Environmental Protection that was allowed to enforce the laws already in place, companies would not have to worry about permits, miners could work, and the citizens would have some faith in the system.

Unfortunately, what we have is an industry that has for generations controlled the politicians; polluted the environment, killing the citizens; and that acts like a schoolyard bully when it is expected to obey the law.

The extraction of coal has always been perceived as an energy issue. However, the problems caused by the mountaintop-removal method of mining coal are human rights issues: burying and polluting our water sources; polluting the air we breathe; destroying our forests and the animal and bird habitat; desecrating our cemeteries and destroying or moving entire towns, thereby eradicating our culture and history; and removing entire mountaintops for which our state is renowned, and with which most West Virginians are spiritually entwined.

Perhaps, one day, the companies and the politicians can be tried for crimes against humanity.

Hoffman is president of the Ansted Historic Preservation Council and is active with OVEC.