As the Prophet Isaiah queried: “What will you do on the Day of Reckoning, when evil comes from afar?”
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Having just completed my first reading of Jeff Biggers’ masterfully crafted, meticulously researched “Reckoning At Eagle Creek,” I am left feeling nigh-breathless at the scope of the evil that came from afar and visited a nigh-Biblical plague upon people in the form of the heartache, sickness and grim Death that always serves as the handmaiden of coal. Such a sensation is fitting, I suppose, for a book that recounts the history of the thousands of human beings rendered breathlessly mute by the ravages of Black Lung, slate falls, mine explosions, poisoned waters, blasted hills, choked valleys, murdered workers and whole communities literally blown off the map in the merciless, ceaseless quest for the Holy Profit of Coal.
Jeff Biggers has crafted out of family history and regional history an honest, unblinking reckoning of the costs paid by a nation and, indeed, a world for what we have been assured by the industry for more than a century is “cheap” coal. Mr. Biggers proves in the pages of “Reckoning At Eagle Creek” that the only way to see coal as “cheap” is to view the lives, history and heritage consumed in its acquisition as being even cheaper still.
“Reckoning At Eagle Creek” is the manifestation of one man’s quest for understanding of where our dependence on the nastiest fuel form on the planet has taken us and where that path ultimately leads. That quest is neither fanciful nor mythical. It is rock-hard and bone-real. With its publication, “Reckoning At Eagle Creek” becomes an immediately necessary resource for anyone who seeks to understand the ever-increasing toll we all pay for “cheap” coal, for “cheap” electricity, for “cheap” heat. In his “reckoning” of accounts within the scope of his family’s southern Illinois homeland, Jeff Biggers honestly reveals coal mineshafts and stripmine pits for what they are: the abbatoirs of the American Dream.
The announcement, which appeared on Air Amercia’s website a few minutes ago, took AAR late night host Nicole Sandler by surprise. In part, the statement by Air America reads as follows:
It is with the greatest regret, on behalf of our Board, that we must announce that Air America Media is ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon, and that the Company will file soon under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code to carry out an orderly winding-down of the business.
The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America’s business. This past year has seen a “perfect storm” in the media industry generally. National and local advertising revenues have fallen drastically, causing many media companies nationwide to fold or seek bankruptcy protection. From large to small, recent bankruptcies like Citadel Broadcasting and closures like that of the industry’s long-time trade publication Radio and Records have signaled that these are very difficult and rapidly changing times.
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[C]urrent employees will be paid through today, January 21. A severance package will be offered tomorrow to full-time current employees with more than six months of tenure.We will strive to assist affiliates and partners in achieving a smooth transition. Starting at 6 pm EST today, we will provide our affiliates, listeners and users a selection of encore programming until 9 pm EST on Monday, January 25, at which time Air America programming will end.
The consequences of this mining in eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and southwestern Virginia are “”pervasive and irreversible,” the article finds. Companies are required by law to take steps to reduce the damages, but their efforts don’t compensate for lost streams nor do they prevent lasting water pollution, it says.
The article is a summary of recent scientific studies of the consequences of blasting the tops off mountains to obtain coal and dumping the excess rock into streams in valleys. The authors also studied new water-quality data from West Virginia streams and found that mining polluted them, reducing their biological health and diversity.
Surprisingly little attention has been paid to this growing scientific evidence of the damages, they wrote, adding: “Regulators should no longer ignore rigorous science.”
New permits shouldn’t be granted, they argued, “unless new methods can be subjected to rigorous peer review and shown to remedy these problems.”
Hear Bob Kincaid’s interview with Scientists on the Review:
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There’s been a lot of talk about carbon tariffs–taxing imported goods from polluting industries in nations or states that don’t regulate CO2–over the last year or so. Many rust belt and coal state Democrats have called for federal climate legislation to include a such a carbon tariff. This would impose a tax on goods imported to the US from nations with no carbon controls on manufacturing (say, China). So it might come as a surprise to some that the first carbon tariff actually enacted isn’t between nations at all–it’s between Minnesota and North Dakota.
….Of course, North Dakota is none too happy about any of this–the state promptly decided to sue Minnesota, saying the tariff unfairly gives renewable energy an advantage over coal powered energy. Perhaps North Dakota missed the memo–that’s precisely the point. The move will hopefully cause speculators in North Dakota to start seriously thinking about wind power projects–the state has been called ‘the Saudi Arabia of wind’ because of the vast potential it has there….
North Dakota’s attorney general said he expects the state to sue Minnesota over a plan there to tax carbon created by electrical generation.
After discussing the issue with the state Industrial Commission in a closed session this month, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said “It is very likely that we will be suing the state of Minnesota.”
At issue is a measure by Minnesota’s Public Utilities Commission to add a fee of between $4 and $34 per ton of carbon dioxide to the cost of electrical generation starting in 2012. The majority of electricity in North Dakota is generated by coal-fired power plants, which emit a large amount of carbon relative to other fuels sources. North Dakota officials argue that the move would place an unfair tax on electricity from the state and discourage its use by Minnesota utilities.
Stenehjem said possible legal action would relate to constitutional protections against restrictions on commerce between states.
In case anyone missed Bob’s conversation with John Walthen last night, here it is, in 4 parts, for your listening and learning leisure.
Part 1
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Part 2
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Part 3
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Part 4
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship will debate environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the University of Charleston on Jan. 21, where the topics are expected to feature mountaintop removal coal mining, America’s energy policy and climate change.
The forum is scheduled to be an invitation-only, 6:30 p.m. event at UC’s Geary Auditorium. Another 2,000 seats will be open to the public for a live broadcast in the school’s Eddie King Gymnasium.
