By Frank Young

Stereotyping and Sideshows Corrupt Public Debate

Recent public forums, demonstrations, letters to newspapers, etc. have produced a proliferation of brilliant (and some not so brilliant) statements of opinion about mountaintop removal mining (MTR). The issue is one of strong emotions, to be sure. The stakes are very high.

Giant economic investments – millions of dollars for machinery, engineering, mineral reserves, political manipulations, etc. -- are at stake. Jobs -- several hundred good paying, but temporary jobs at larger mining sites -- are at stake. Politics -- the political future of many office holders and office seekers is potentially at stake. Some year 2000 political campaigns may hinge on how strongly a candidate does or does not support mountaintop removal mining. Even Governor Underwood stands to rise or fall for another term depending partly upon how the voting public perceives his leadership on this issue. And, of course, the environment -- the future of hundreds of miles of streams and the natural life therein, hundreds of mountains and valleys, the presence of quality groundwater and the future of existing human residents continuing to live in established neighborhoods and communities -- is at stake. So the high stakes naturally contribute to strong emotions.

These high stakes should prompt civil discourse on such an important matter as mountaintop removal mining. However, the strong emotions have too often resulted recently in rather uncivil and grossly inaccurate accusations from many sides of the issue. One can sometimes wonder whether maybe the emotional, unfounded accusations are being orchestrated to distract discussions from the real, legal issues being adjudicated in court.

Among the untrue charges is that the plaintiffs in the MTR / valley fill lawsuit are a bunch of rich, lazy, welfare dependent, out of state, hippie, drug using , draft dodging, environmental "extremists." Another charge is that the agenda of the plaintiffs is to stop all coal mining in West Virginia. None of these charges are supported by evidence. They appear to be spawned and encouraged by coal companies which do not want to talk about their mining practices and the permits issued by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. The coal company employees, coal and coal vendor associations, etc. are quick to pick up on these "sound bite" untruths and repeat them loudly and often at whatever opportunities appear.

On the other side, some folks have said that the coal industry will not be satisfied until every mountain in the state is leveled, and every stream is filled. This is not true either -- if for no other reason than because all the coal can be mined without doing so.

If the purpose of public forums is to discuss, learn and inform, then irresponsible attempts to portray the issue as only this or that group of misfits and radicals against the otherwise sane and reasonable world is contrary to that purpose.

It serves the purposes of coal companies, which don’t want the public to focus on the law and the environment, to obfuscate the issues for public debate. Public time and energies spent on bogus side issues are not spent addressing the legal and environmental consequences of mountaintop removal. In shaping the public perception of mountaintop removal, as long as time is used on side issues, then time is on the side of the companies that want no changes. If time is spent on the legal and environmental matters, then time is against the status quo for the companies. That's because reasonable people, given a fair chance to assess the environmental consequences of mountaintop removal mining, along with the laws designed to regulate the activity, will see that the laws are not being enforced, and that effective enforcement would take care of most of the environmental problems associated with this destructive mining practice.

So the next time you attend a public MTR forum and a coal company representative or a coal vendor representative starts telling you about environmental extremists and out of state agitators, ask him or her why they don't want to talk about maintaining approximate original contour (AOC) at mined sites, or about incorporating legally prescribed post mining land uses at AOC exempted sites, or about how valley fills fail to comport with federal Cleanwater Act provisions. Chances are that he or she will immediately divert to talking about industry produced awards, the stringency of enforcement by regulators, "environmental extremists" and other irrelevant gobbledegook.

The companies and their allied associations do this because if the public debate is about the law and the environmental consequences of coal companies and regulating agencies ignoring the laws, they will lose the debate. The only way the companies can win this public debate is to have the debate become corrupted into one about issues having no connection with the environmental and legal issues of mountaintop removal.

Fortunately for the plaintiffs in the MTR lawsuit, Judge Haden's court appears to be looking more at the law and consequences of ignoring the law than at the side show of distraction and misinformation being orchestrated by the coal companies.