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There are numerous social, moral, and environmental arguments against Mountaintop Removal coal mining (MTR). In this diary, I lay out the economic arguments against MTR.
Jobs, jobs, jobs
The very first argument you will hear in favor of Mountaintop Removal coal mining is "jobs, jobs, and jobs." Before I dispatch of that argument, let's get some facts out on the table, just how many jobs are we talking about?
Back in 1940, West Virginia had its peak employment of 130,457 coal miners (source). In 2006, there were less than 20,000. All mining jobs--Oil and Gas Extraction, Other Mining, and Mining Support Jobs--total 3.34% of 2006 estimated employment in West Virginia.
Despite our long proud history of coal extraction, coal mining in West Virginia now employs less people than most other industries:
Industry (April 2009 % of WVa workforce employed)
- Government (18.8%)
- Educational and Health Services (14.9%)
- Retail Trade (10.8%)
- Leisure and Hospitality (8.9%)
- Unemployed (7.9%)
- Professional and Business Services (7.4%)
- Other Services (7.0%)
- Manufacturing (6.5%)
- Construction (4.3%)
- Mining and Logging (3.6%)
- Financial Activities (3.6%)
- Transportation, Warehousing, and Utilities (3.4%)
- Wholesale Trade (2.9%)
- Information (1.3%)
Employment in the extraction industries--oil, gas, and coal plus logging and direct support jobs--added up to 3.6% of the estimated employment in April 2009 in West Virginia. In other words, there were twice as many people unemployed in West Virginia last month as there were employed in all extraction industry jobs.
Many coal mining jobs pay well. But, the industry is highly cyclical, with periods of boom and bust (heavy overtime followed by layoffs) quite frequent. Also, it it is a dangerous job with a history of neglect of on-the-job employee safety and neglect of long-term employee health.
Mountaintop Removal and WVa Jobs
Mountaintop Removal coal mining is only one type of coal mining in West Virginia. Much of the coal mined in West Virginia is extracted in underground mines. Mine owners and operators prefer MTR mines because they are less costly to operate. With current technology, MTR mining is the lowest cost option for extracting small seams of coal. (Note: lowest cost in this context refers only to the actual costs paid by mine operators, not the total costs to society.)
What would happen to West Virginia coal mining jobs if no new MTR permits were ever issued? Paradoxically, a ban on MTR would create more coal mining jobs.
Underground mining requires more employees per ton of coal mined. Right now demand for coal is relatively low. It is projected to remain low for the foreseeable future. Domestic demand is down, coal exports are down and nearby steel plant closings don't help any, either.
In this economy, Mountaintop Removal mining and underground mines are competing with one another to provide supply to meet limited demand. Mine owners and operators are closing down operations, starting with their highest cost mines, typically, underground mines.
The best way to keep underground miners employed is to stop Mountaintop Removal mining.
If all new Mountaintop Removal mining is stopped, it will force mining companies to keep their underground mines open longer and to keep looking for more coal they can mine underground. Underground mines use more miners per ton of coal, that means more total WVa coal mining jobs.
Mountaintop Removal and Economic Development
The second argument you may here in favor of Mountaintop Removal coal mining is that the coal fields of West Virginia lack flat land and MTR provides valuable opportunities for land development.
There are two major flaws with this argument.
First, by some estimates, "of the mountains flattened less than 5% have any economic development." In the region around Southern West Virginia, the total may be less than 1%. Existing regulations are poorly enforced. (Decades have passed and there is still not legal definition for original contour.)
If Mountaintop Removal was going to be a great engine of economic development for the coal fields, it would have happened by now. Instead, we find there is a high correlation between areas with high levels of MTR mining, unhappiness, and low economic performance.
Second, there is a fundamental incompatibility between Mountaintop Removal coal mining and other economic development.
It's not too hard to figure out why. If you owned a coal mine and were thinking about expanding operations, would you want to compete for land and workers with higher-paying industries? Of course not.
Coal companies put the best interests of their owners (and shareholders) first and foremost. The best thing for a coal company is to operate in a poor region of the country with little competing economic development. Coal companies want land as cheap as possible, regulation as lax as possible, and employees as dependent as possible.
Ending Mountaintop Removal is a first necessary step for ending West Virginia's dependency on an unsustainable resource extraction economy.
People aren't trapped in carbon-extraction industries by some law of nature. They're trapped by policy and intent. Areas that are centered on extraction industries are far more likely to be poor exactly because of the nature of these industries. These are very top heavy businesses that leave behind environmental damage, little to no infrastructure improvements, and a populace whose jobs skills are not easily transported to another industry. Over the last thirty years, voters in these areas often support conservative politicians because they see these politicians as protective of their jobs. To support these industries, conservative politicians remove regulation that would improve environmental remediation, reduce taxes that would benefit communities, and drive out unions that would protect worker's rights. The result builds a cycle that's more difficult to stop than a two-pack a day smoking habit.
Areas dependent on extraction industry might as well be mining poverty.
The way forward
Some day, perhaps as soon as a decade or two, West Virginia will run out of viable coal deposits. No doubt our economy is dependent in the short-term on coal mining jobs and coal mining revenue. We are not, however, dependent on Mountaintop Removal. A ban on MTR will generate economic benefits for West Virginia. |
