'WV has alternatives' other than MTR, Bobby Kennedy, Jr. says (Mining)

Comment: Open pit uranium or coal mining does not provide jobs for locals: "You look at his mine sites, these people are coming from out of state"! Open pit mining will bring in Canadians or other hard rock miner from other states. Not many people in Virginia are experienced open pit mining; therefore, the foreign uranium corporations will blow up our hills throughout VA, ruin our water, air, land and destroy Virginian's health to profit the state of VA and Canada! Demand our state to ban uranium mining and milling and stop blowup our mountains to ship coal to China!

January 14, 2010 · Next Thursday, environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will debate Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship in a highly-publicized event at the University of Charleston.


Kennedy says he first became aware of mountaintop removal as a teenager. His father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy visited West Virginia during his 1968 presidential campaign.

“It’s an issue that my father was concerned about and spoke to me about when I was 14 years old,” Kennedy said. “Mountaintop removal in West Virginia is the worst human-made environmental catastrophe ever to happen in North America.”

Ten years ago, Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, founded the Waterkeeper Alliance. The organization works to protect waterways around the world.

He says he agreed to debate Blankenship because Massey Energy is the nation’s most environmentally irresponsible company.

There’s no way mountaintop removal should be allowed to continue, Kennedy says.

“It should be stopped immediately. It’s that cut and dry, of course. It would create a lot more jobs for West Virginia if that happened.”

Kennedy cited the declining number of coal miners, even while the industry extracts more coal than ever before. It’s mountaintop removal mines, he says, that are shrinking the workforce and sending bigger profits to out-of-state banks and companies.

“And those interests, what I call thieving interests, are liquidating the state of West Virginia for cash,” he said.

“Don Blankenship claims that he’s enriching workers but he’s got the highest turnover in the industry in his workforce," he said.

“He’s got the most mountaintop removal and the highest turnover. He has a 25 percent annual turnover rate.

You look at his mine sites, these people are coming from out of state.

And they’re not sustainable jobs. Even by their own admissions, the jobs last five years to 15 years, tops.

This is not something that’s enriching West Virginia.”

West Virginia has options other than coal and mountaintop removal, he says. He spoke about the state’s natural beauty, as well as West Virginia’s convenient proximity to major cities. Finding an alternative future requires some creativity, he says.

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” he said.

“The state government officials have just contented themselves with taking money from the coal industry and doing their bidding, making the easy excuse that ‘we have no alternative.’ I don’t accept that.

West Virginia has a lot of other alternatives than cutting down its mountains."

Tune into West Virginia Public Radio Thursday, January 21 at 6 p.m. for live coverage of the debate.
Massey Energy did not return calls requesting an interview with Don Blankenship.

Read more:
http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=12790