PATH and MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL MINING
Lost Jobs and Lower Property Values
By Danny Chiotos
Who benefits most from the coal-fired electricity produced in West Virginia?
For more than a century, West Virginia coal miners have sacrificed their backs, lungs, and health to put food on their families’ tables. For more than fifty years, West Virginia communities have seen not only massive job loss, but an escalating loss of our mountains to strip mining, more commonly known as mountaintop removal. For more than twenty years, West Virginia miners have had their most powerful voice, the United Mine Workers of America, broken by aggressive coal companies with Don Blankenship & Massey Energy leading the union-busting charge. For more than ten years, West Virginians have seen the ultimate taking “the taking of our homes” to Mountaintop Removal and the Valley Fills it creates.
Right now, the same people who have been responsible for all of the above are pushing for a giant power line to ship electricity from the Charleston (WV) area to the Eastern Seaboard. The Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH) starts in Putnam County, WV then cuts its way across the mountains and valleys of 17 West Virginia Communities on its way out of state.
If built, this line would be a 765-Kilovolt Transmission line. An Administrative Law Judge for the Pennsylvania Public Service Commission has said that the proposed 550-Kilovolt Trans Allegheny Interstate Line (TrAIL) would require four additional coal plants. PATH, at 765 KV, has double the transmission capacity of TrAIL and simple multiplication dictates that there would be eight additional coal plants needed for this line. This is at a time when West Virginia is already exporting about two-thirds of the electricity (98% of WV’s electricity is coalfired), we don’t need this power line to further ship our power out of state. If you think we’ve already seen too much profit for Don Blankenship & his buddies, too much union busting, and too much mountaintop removal “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
If all that above isn’t enough for you this monstrous power line harms local property values, increases harmful herbicides sprayed on the ground near the lines, and harms human health. All of this for a line that West Virginians would end up paying for through increased electricity rates. It’s clear who benefits most from coal-fired electricity produced in West Virginia and it’s not West Virginians.
Editor’s Note: Danny Chiotos is the President of the WV Environmental Council.
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