By Frank Young

"A Match Made in Hell?"

The West Virginia Environmental Institute is an organization whose members come from environmental advocacy, business and industry, and government regulatory agencies. The Institute seeks to bring together groups and individuals with varying perspectives on issues involving the environment.

Several years ago I was a member of and worked with the Institute to help plan environmental forums. I hope to again in the future.

In mid-October the WV Environmental Institute sponsored a two day forum styled "A Match Made in ‘Almost Heaven:’ Marrying West Virginia’s Economic and Environmental Future."

I was immediately taken aback by the forum’s title. West Virginia’s economic and environmental past have always been joined. It may not have been a "marriage." But it has always been a sinful, abusive relationship, I've thought. But I attended this symbolic "marriage," partly out of curiosity, and to support the Institute’s mission.

The first forum panel discussion, "Setting the stage, A Prenuptial Agreement?" included Tom Boggs, a Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Boggs, also a past chairman of the West Virginia Manufacturer’s Association, immediately went into the Chamber’s usual spiel about the need to be able to "market the state." When the time for audience questions came, I asked Mr. Boggs if, considering the century plus record of environmental mayhem at the hands of industrialists, "marketing the state" wasn’t just a euphemism for prostituting his intended bride, the environment?

Other than a weak "no," Boggs had no response.

When I asked Boggs if he wasn’t promising to be a better partner just to get to "marry" this already weak and abused partner (the environment), he mumbled something about needing to do a better job at the partnership than in the past.

By this time I was bristling and angry. These guys have been living in sin with the environment for decades! It has been an amazingly abusive relationship! The economy, in the hands of timber, chemical and coal barons and their allied supporters, has beaten up on the environment and denied it natural rights of a mutually beneficial and satisfactory relationship. Domestic abuse of lands, streams and air has been the rule for decades.

The industrialists who control the economy of the state, instead of citizens and their government, have, like most abusive partners, enjoyed the benefits of the relationship but haven’t exercised the responsibility for anything resembling equality and fair treatment. It’s almost all been take, take, take.

And when government tries to mediate for the environment and the citizens in this abuse, the abuser (industry) manipulates/corrupts the mediator (government) to its side.

If there’s to be such a "marriage," even a symbolic one, then I suggest, as a pre-requisite, long and substantial treatments for a long demonstrated pattern of environmental abuse. This treatment should be for the environment and should last until it can stand up for and defend itself. And it should be for the industrial abusers and should last until they have forgotten how to be anything but subservient to and tender toward the environment.

Failing these mutual rehabilitative treatments for continuing abuses, I recommend that the fraudulent "marriage" between the economy and the environment be annulled. The environment should then find itself a new suitor – one that will offer tender, loving care in return for the modest freedom to earn an honest living from her bountiful resources.