The U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration today announced that federal inspectors issued 321 citations and orders during special impact inspections conducted at 10 coal mines and three metal/nonmetal mines last month. The coal mines were issued 174 citations and 19 orders, while the metal/nonmetal operations were issued 112 citations and 16 orders.

These inspections, which began in force in April 2010 following the explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine, involve mines that merit increased agency attention and enforcement due to their poor compliance history or particular compliance concerns, including high numbers of violations or closure orders; frequent hazard complaints or hotline calls; plan compliance issues; inadequate workplace examinations; a high number of accidents, injuries or illnesses; fatalities; and adverse conditions such as increased methane liberation, faulty roof conditions and inadequate ventilation.

READ MORE AT COAL TATTOO AT THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE

Which other industry had 29 deaths on their books recently? Name one, I’ll wait.

Also, I hope you’re not connected to the land there. Because the coal industry is making sure that your grand kids will be moving away due to lack of jobs, or else becoming those welfare drug addicts you seem to despise. What else are they going to do when coal has got done raping and pillaging. All the while folks support it because they’re too afraid of losing the peanuts that the company throws at their feet.

My grandad is a preacher in eastern KY and he doesn’t get it either. You all let these coal men use the name of God to promote what they’re doing. That is a sin and a goddamned shame. The Bible says that no one shall take the Lord’s name in vain. But you all cheer the men who use God’s name in their pursuit of money. The phrase “selling your soul” for money isn’t just a euphemism and the miners are just as guilty as the owners when they use God as a justification for their actions. And not a trace of shame about it either…

Read your Bible. All sins are equal in the eyes of God and those who do not repent will face retribution. The mine owners are committing terrible sins and the miners that continue to sell their souls for a paycheck are too. Unless we recognize and repent of our sins we cannot be forgiven. If you are too proud to see and repent in this life, then you will not be forgiven in this life in the next.

If you pray about it God will let you know that what is happening in those mountains is a sin against His creation. Once you know and don’t repent, you have committed a sin against God himself. He will not tolerate your pride and your lack of faith that he will give you another way to take care of your family.

Why do you think the people in those mountains are suffering so badly recently? It’s because the sins of the mines are bleeding out and affecting everyone in the area. God’s creation is poisoning folks and God’s anger is displayed by the drug problems and poverty in the area. You don’t see it because you are too proud to see and repent for the sins against God’s creation.

Not all mining is bad, but the Bible says to do all things in moderation. The way things are now is not moderation. It is excess and greed for the gratification and glorification of men. If you don’t know this then you need to pray about your soul. God shows His children what is right and wrong. If you don’t see how wrong it is and see the greed and your pride, then I have my doubts as to whether you are a child of God.

I’ll pray for you and all of those that are continuing the sins of supporting the destruction of God’s work. I’ll also pray for the drug addicts and even those who use God’s name to rally fools to their own cause. May God open all of your hearts and eyes, because if he doesn’t then you’ll suffer even more than the land before long.

Environmental Opposition

Environmentalists have opposed the project, saying it will contribute to greenhouse-gas emissions and endanger drinking water supplies in Nebraska. They have staged demonstrations outside the White House and vowed to withhold financial support to Obama’s presidential campaign if he approves the pipeline.

“The entire purpose of the pipeline is to move Canadian oil to the crude refineries in the Gulf so that it can be shipped overseas,” Jeremy Symons, a National Wildlife Federation vice president, said today in a phone interview. “If the pipeline is built, Canada gets the jobs, China gets the oil and American families get the oil spills.”

Protests in Nebraska and at the White House have focused on the risks of a spill tainting the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska’s Sand Hills region. TransCanada has discussed alternate routes with state officials that would pose less risk to drinking-water supplies.

We wanted to point you to The Thoughtful Coal Miner blog, written by Nick Mullins.

Mullins is a fourth generation coal miner. Or, rather, he was. A fire took his house in July “and gave us a much clearer perspective on life, love, and happiness.” Mullins quit his job in the mines and he and his wife and children have “set out upons an adventure, seeking a better future for them outside the coalfields.” His blog is about that adventure.

The blog is a regular account of how Nick and his family are doing.

Here’s Nick on his decision to leave underground coal mining:

Every Sunday afternoon my wife and I would take the children up to their mammaws and pappaws to enjoy the day. My father mentioned he had a show he’d recorded on the DVR from the Discovery Channel called Coal Country. We both watched it. Damn had I been blind. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know how bad. It wasn’t just the coal miners who were getting the short end of the stick, but everyone in the coalfields. Afterward my dad, a life long coal miner, went outside and scraped the Friends of Coal Sticker off of his truck window. He knew the coal companies were at it again, this time they were abusing the land, not just coal miners.

What had I become? I used to hate the coal industry for their greed. It tore me apart ten years earlier when they performed a mountain top removal job above us, destroying the ridge and filling in the valley my brother and I spent so many years playing in. I had felt powerless to do anything so I just accepted it. Coal was not our friend. Coal had never been our friend, not from the days of the coal camps and Baldwin Felts agents to the 1989 Pittston Strike and Vances Security. If anything made the coal industry “good” it was the miners who worked for them and who fought to make a decent job out of coal mining.

Why had I ignored it, why was I living a lie? I had become dependent on the nice checks and the security of a good healthcare plan for my family. I allowed myself to be bought, just like the many folks who sold their mineral rights when the land men first came to Appalachia.I was utterly disgusted with myself. I had principles once before. I swore to never work on a strip mine. I chose to only work underground because I had always hated strip mining.It didn’t matter I was still working for and supporting an industry with no regard for the people of Appalachia and our environment. Profit, that’s all they cared about.  How could I just let things be, accept the status quo? It was time to take action. 

• The West Kentucky Journal reports that an effort in the state to diversify sources of electricity could result in the creation of some 28,000 jobs.

The Journal reports on a study of a bill proposed by a Kentucky state representative that would require utilities in the state to buy or generate more of their power from renewable sources. A study on the economic effects of the bill found that this would result in job gains for the state.

• A poll of farmers attending the Farm Bureau convention in Honolulu found that 75 percent said they intended to vote for the Republican nominee for president. Most farmers attending the convention supported Mitt Romney over Rick Santorum.

A similar poll of delegates was taken in 2008. At that time, Democrats received only 5 percent from Farm Bureau convention attendees.

• DTN’s editor Urban Lehner writes about the Labor Department’s proposal to restrict the work children may do on farms. Good read.

• The protests have started on the Department of Agriculture’s plans to close 259 field offices.

“A ‘cut first, ask questions later’ attitude in Congress toward investing in agriculture and rural America is now showing its true cost to farmers, ranchers and rural citizens,” said Chandler Goule, a lobbyist for the National Farmers Union. ,

• The Postal Service’s Inspector General wants to hear from people about the plan to close 3,652 local post offices. You can leave your comments here.

• There’s a battle in Arkansas over a proposal to raise the severance tax on natural gas.

Rural legislators are asking the Arkansas Municipal League to reverse its support of the increased tax. The tax is being pushed by former natural gas executive Sheffield Nelson, who is trying to get the proposal on the ballot in November.

Money from the tax would be used for road improvements.

•AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka (former president of the United Mine Workers) gave a speech yesterday about global warming. Here’s some of what he had to say:

Today, as we meet together, scientists tell us we are headed ever more swiftly toward irreversible climate change—with catastrophic consequences for human civilization. We must have a stable climate to feed the planet, to ensure there is drinking water for our cities but not floodwaters at our doors. A stable climate is the foundation of our global civilization, of our global economy—the prerequisite for a profitable investment environment.

And to those who say climate risk is a far off problem, I can tell you that I have hunted the same woods in Western Pennsylvania my entire life and climate change is happening now—I see it in the summer droughts that kill the trees, the warm winter nights when flowers bloom in January, the snows that fall less frequently and melt more quickly.

Even so, some will ask, why should investors or working people focus on climate risk when we have so many economic problems across the world? The labor movement has a clear answer: Addressing climate risk is not a distraction from solving our economic problems. My friends, addressing climate risk means retooling our world—it means that every factory and power plant, every home and office, every rail line and highway, every vehicle, locomotive and plane, every school and hospital, must be modernized, upgraded, renovated or replaced with something cleaner, more efficient, less wasteful.

READ MORE COMMENTS ON THE DAILY YONDER

The Governor is considering a bill taxing the use of gasoline powered lawn mowers after a special interest equine group (HDLM) focused on Clean Energy Solutions raised $450,000.00 in campaign funds,  gifts, dinners, speaking engagements, and a post-appointment job in the manure industry FOX News reported Tuesday.

When cornered in the Governor’s mansion corral and asked about the morality of accepting such gifts the Governor replied “Don’t yell at me Wilbur! I’m not your wife!”

Politicians are supposed to represent the people. That’s what the founding fathers wanted, a group of fair minded people that would do their best to represent the will of the people. Now politicians are more worried more about their own jobs, and the stream of funds that come from aligning themselves with something the founding fathers knew nothing about, Big corporations, Big money, and Big Greed.

Of course coal is an important part of our economy, and provides energy for the nation. But any educated person knows that it’s an antiquated way of providing energy, as it pollutes, kills miners because of corporate greed, and creates health issues. The EPA is an organization that has the duty to put pressure on these corporations to keep them clean, and hold them responsible for what ills are created until we can move beyond this scourge on humanity. All we hear from the current politicians is the old pundit call of the flying monkeys – “war on coal! war on coal!”. It’s a continuing call of  propaganda based on the interests of the power politics of Appalachia, and not the will of the people.

It’s time that the negativity and finger pointing goes by the wayside, and politicians represent the will of the people to work together to bring the shadow of coal to the light of a new energy future.  If half of the energy wasted on keeping a dying and dirty industry alive were put into bringing new energy ideas to reality, we would already live in a much different place. People wish to live in a world where their mountains and forests exist in peace, their families are not forced to work in highly dangerous jobs, and their best interests are  represented by their leaders. These educated politicians should be challenging themselves to brighten the future of Appalachia, not to foster more of the same poverty, and sense of usery that abides there now. It’s a shame that instead of creating an atmosphere that we’re all in it together to move beyond dirty coal, we must choose sides, and fight those who put profits before people.

What’s the matter with our country? Could it be that this misuse of power that will finally end Abraham Lincoln’s dream “that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”?

I’ll say again that term limits for politicians, and strict penalties for accepting bribes and monies from powerful corporations should be next on our agenda as free people that demand an end to hipocracy in politics.  It’s becoming more an more painful to see this sort of “us against them” cry of politicians and media, while the common people pay higher taxes to have them represent corporate interests.

-Citizen Harry

Alpha lawyers want U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers to deny a request by the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition to include the studies in its lawsuit over the Reylas Surface Mine, proposed by Alpha subsidiary Highland Mining.

The coalition and other groups are asking to add a claim about potential human health impacts to a suit that challenges a Clean Water Act permit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued for the 235-acre mine proposed for Logan County.

Environmental group lawyers cited three studies co-authored by WVU researcher Michael Hendryx that found generally higher rates of health problems, and specifically higher rates of cancer and birth defects, among residents living near mountaintop removal operations in Appalachia.

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