i am forever amazed by the manners with which big monster business and government works ... or should i say, operates, since much of it hardly ever seems to be 'working.' the weirdness, dichotomy and flat-out contradictions in policy and behavior just might spin your brain bucket right off its perch at times ... that is if you pay close-enough attention. and doing that is sometimes a curse of self-driven attention leading to frustrated insanity.
word today from an associated press story i read claims a consortium of government officials, researchers and coalmining executives, calling themselves the appalachian regional reforestation initiative, have come together to create a plan to put more than 2,000 people to work throughout appalachia - doing of all things - planting 125 million trees on land the coal companies themselves have raped with mountaintop removal surface mining.
'this offers a tremendous opportunity for creating green jobs that will have far-reaching impacts on the economy and ecology of the region,' patrick angel, a forester with the office of surface mining, told the AP.
let's see, mr. angel, more far-reaching than the 1 million acres in hardwoods forests and mountain ecology your employers have allowed to be destroyed all along the ridgetops and mountain settings in appalachia? it seems mining officials, and certainly the companies, would want us to believe they are suddenly ecological champions by coming out with a plan to replant the very forests they have destroyed. and such a planting initiative, which in itself is a positive, in no way addresses the hundreds of miles of valley stream and river ecology which has been destroyed through erosion and blasting castoff. for these valleys, it is too late ... eventually those ecologies will restore themselves ... in a thousand years.
for most americans who have never seen the appalachian mountains, this practice of removing the top of a mountain to get at the coal underneath is no big deal. since appalachia is 'out of sight, out of mind' for most of our 330 million american neighbors, the issue is mainly the concern of regional residents (most often conflicted because they have a generations-long love of the mountains, but also need the employment coal offers) and a few ecological groups. and since appalachian people and those who love the mountains are often deemed ignorant and uninitiated by the rest of the populace and groups such as sierra club are often labeled 'tree hugging liberals,' the issue gets very little play in the mainstream 'snooze' media.
and getting the government to listen to concerns over mountaintop removal mining is always an, ahem, uphill battle. why is this? firstly, because it's appalachia. secondly, because coal fuels about 90 percent of the electricity in the united states. coal and electricity are big business and big money. don't misunderstand me, i enjoy electricity and i understand there is a need for mining. but there has to be better ways to both produce electricity and to mine coal. just one look at the leveled top of a mountain, with the dust blowing in great clouds from it will convince one of that much.
and the mine companies, always the optimists and the premier bullshitters, want to remind us all that there are postives to blasting the top from a mountain. david moss, the governmental affairs director for the kentucky coal association, wants us all to know that the flatlands 'created' by the mining have 'provided' grazing areas for cattle and horses, as well as creating habitat for the largest herd of wild elk in the eastern united states. give me a break ... there is very little cattle farming in eastern kentucky to start with and mining companies themselves have admitted the horse grazing in these areas has become a problem as people 'drop' unwanted animals and privately-owned animals often escape and disrupt their own mining operations. and as far as the elk thing goes ... i see that as yet another attempt for big coal to paint themselves as environmentalists.
i am all for the plan to reforest these areas. reclamation should take place ... but even reclamation will never restore these areas to the status they once were. i have seen plenty of surface mining reclamation projects in eastern and western kentucky. what you often end up with is a prairie, sown with grasses, with a bit of scrub ... certainly not what the land had evolved into on its own time and was in its prior state.
environmental projects should be undertaken by all companies that destroy and pollute to produce their wares. yet, when those project move forward, don't think us so ignorant and naive as to believe 'you'uns' got behind it to be stewards and economic developers. your spin is lost on we, the people, the initiated and the smarter-than-we-look.
peace.
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