DEP ignores retention pond spill

by: heath_harrison

Wed Jan 20, 2010 at 05:34:04 AM EST

Posted Monday by Climate Ground Zero:

A gushing spill from a failed retention pond that began last night continues today, despite the state Department of Environmental Protection having been notified last night. The gray and muddy water is spilling out of Appalachian Fuels' Big Creek strip mine in Fayette County.

A complaint was called in to the WVDEP Spill Hotline last night by a citizen who spotted the brown water gushing into the Gauley River just a couple of miles upriver from Gauley Bridge around 5:30 pm January 15th. Abandoned Mines Land inspectors visited the site and confirmed that a retention pond had failed. As yet, there appears to be no action to mitigate the spill.

Protect Gauley Mountain or Reissue W.Va. State Quarter?

by: Clem Guttata

Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 12:33:30 PM EST

A few years back, when we picked an image to represent our state, what did we put on the state quarter? None other than Gauley Mountain behind New River Gorge and the New River Bridge.

This is a beautiful image of enduring beauty, symbolizing the natural wonders of our state, wild, wonderful West Virginia.

What do you value?

Do we relegate that view to the dustbin of history--thankful it was captured on countless quarters, post cards, and Kodak moments for posterity. Will we sacrifice yet another mountain top, yet another stream bed, yet another watershed to the Gods of commerce. Will we be listening from New River Bridge for the echoes of dynamite blasts, content in knowing the ever diminishing ridge line increases coal company profits.

If nothing changes, that's the path we are headed down.

Or, we can stand together, take action, and insist the coal under Gauley Mountain be mined the old-fashioned way, leaving the mountain intact, and digging underground to get it.

Take Action

If you're like most people, you think unfettered greed is bad for society. If you're like most people you think there society should place some bounds on corporate actions. If you are ready to to say this is one step too far, here's what you can do.

First, join over 2,500 others and sign this petition: Save Gauley Mountain.

Second, if you are a member of Facebook, join this group to keep informed: Save Gauley Mountain.

Third, get informed. You can read even more about what's happening at Gauley Mountain in this article in Smithsonian Magazine and this diary, Mountain Monday: Gauley Mountain, WV.

Fourth, spread the word. Send your friends these links (or, a link to this diary).

Finally, below the fold, the latest news from the Save Gauley Mountain FB group.

I wonder if the Fayette County GOP is still proud of their guest speaker?

by: Carnacki

Mon Oct 27, 2008 at 20:36:52 PM EDT

Maybe Joe McCain was still stinging from their greeting.

The famous McCain temper and lack of judgement in action. He's just like his brother.

Fayette County Democrats greet Joe McCain

by: Carnacki

Thu Oct 09, 2008 at 22:44:58 PM EDT

Fayette County Democrats showed up to greet him.

Great job, folks!

Stripmining Black History Month

by: Clem Guttata

Sat Feb 02, 2008 at 17:31:32 PM EST

Jeff Biggers has a great article this week at Huffington Post tracing the roots of Black History Month to Fayette County, West Virginia (hat tip to reader M for recommending this article),

As schools, communities and politicians across the country celebrate Black History Month in February, they will be remiss if their lessons don't include the coal fields of Fayette County, West Virginia. There, in the 1890s, a teenage African American followed his brothers into the coal mines, serving what Carter Woodson called his "six-year apprenticeship." In the evenings, the young Woodson would gather with other black coal miners, read the newspaper, and listen to their extraordinary stories of life underground, and their struggles during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era.

[snip]

A century after Woodson's tenure in the coal mines in West Virginia, another "first" took place in Fayette County. In 1970, the first mountaintop removal operation was launched on Cannelton Hollow in area once called Bullpush Mountain. Thirty-eight years later, mountaintop removal practices--the process of literally blowing up mountains, and dumping the waste into waterways and valleys, in order to cheaply remove coal--have destroyed over 450 mountains and neighboring communities, displaced miners, and stripmined the cultural landscape in the Appalachian region.

This catastrophic form of coal mining has robbed Appalachia of too much of its history in the process. If anything, it should remind the nation that the neglect and degradation of a region and its history have always mirrored the neglect and abuse of the land.

In a speech at Hampton Institute in Virginia, Woodson once reminded the audience: "We have a wonderful history behind us....If you are unable to demonstrate to the world that you have this record, the world will say to you, "You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else.' They will say to you, 'Who are you anyway?'"

Appalachians understand this bitter historical reality more than any other citizens in the United States. Black Appalachians, especially.

[snip]

Did you know that four months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus in 1955, she took a seat at the Highlander Folk School in the backwoods of Tennessee, where she attended strategy session on social action led by so-called "radical hillbillies." That the first desegregated school to graduate a black student in the South was in the mountains of Tennessee?

And did you know that the United Mine Workers have always been an integrated union? Coal miners and coal mining communities in Appalachia and around the country should be celebrated during Black History Month, not dismissed or forgotten.

The entire article is well worth a read. You can read more about Woodson here and here

October 24th, Fayetteville, WV - "Shared Prosperity" Topic of Town Hall Meeting

by: Clem Guttata

Tue Oct 23, 2007 at 09:28:11 AM EDT

"Shared Prosperity" Topic of Town Hall Meeting

Contact:  Gary Zuckett 304-346-5891 or Matt Wender 304-573-5980

WV United hosts next in a series of meetings in Fayette County

Fayetteville - WV, West Virginians United, a coalition of progressive state organizations, is holding the next of several state-wide community town hall style meetings at the Cathedral Café on Wednesday, October 24th at 6:30 PM.

The meetings are to promote their "Agenda for a Shared Prosperity" - a set of values and policy proposals to strengthen our middle class while creating the conditions necessary for more families to realize the "American Dream"

Speakers will outline the basic prosperity agenda with brief comments and then open the discussion up to the community members attending. The topics to be addressed are:

Health Care Reform - making health care affordable and assessable to all West Virginians;
Cost of War - connecting the extreme costs of the conflict in Iraq to the cuts in spending for education, housing, social services and other domestic spending in West Virginia;
Justice in the Workplace - how workplace issues affect quality of life; and
Economic Fairness - how public policy can level the playing field and work toward a shared prosperity.

What:  Town Hall Meeting on an "Agenda for Shared Prosperity"

When: Wednesday, October 24th at 6:30 PM

Where: Cathedral Café, 134 S. Court St, Fayetteville, WV 25840

Moderator: Dan Doyle, MD

Speakers:
Renate Pore, Exec. Director, WV Healthy Kids & Families Coalition
Larry Matheney, Sec./Treas. WV AFL-CIO
Rev. Jim Lewis, WV Patriots for Peace
Ted Boettner, Mountain State Education & Research

The 6th year anniversary of the destructive floods that hit McDowell County and all of southern WV

by: bluemcdowell

Sun Jul 08, 2007 at 03:38:39 AM EDT

July 8, 2001 was by far the saddest day in the life of yours truly bluemcdowell.  The house that I had lived in for over 31 years destroyed in really under an hours' time.

The night before the flood I went to bed about midnight.  At that time I tended to sleep very late in the day up until about 11am.  But this time I had actually gotten up a little earlier at about 9am in the morning.  I slept in the floor that night in a bed bad which really I did pretty commonly at that time with the air conditioner running full blast which really comforted me and made me sleep more easily,

I turned on the TV to watch WWE wrestling,  The very second I did so I saw that the very first flash flood warning had been issued I think for Raleigh County, WV.  I then peaked out the window for the very first time and I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  It was raining the hardest I had ever seen it rain before in my whole entire life.  My house was really lower than my neighbors at the time, so my yard was normally wetter then them most of the time.  I kept excepting, hoping, and praying the rain would either let up and stop.  It didn't.  In fact it even seemed to rain heavier and heavier.

For the first time in my life however I could not even see one blade of grass sticking above the water.  All of my yard was under water.  100 percent of it.  Even my neighbors' yards were 90 percent covered.

Usually they say that all you can do is stay inside in a situation like that.  But I firmly believe that if I had done so I wouldn't be here writing this diary today.

Actually my next door neighbor at the time, a guy that my family really especially me whose family really hated me and my grandparents with a passion told me that the creek almost had come out of its banks in April of 2001.  And that was the absolutely first time I had heard of it. 

Sadly I'm the talk of that community even today 6 years later.  I never did anything to those people.  I'm the "joke' up there.

Remember the negative stereotypes of West Virginians?  It's people like them who give us our bad name.  I better leave it at that at the present time.

But the church I went to there was by the far the best church I have ever been to.  And I still visit it from time to time.  They hated the way that family and their friends treated me.  I love that church to death.  To me it's really like home.

Back to the main story at hand:

 While I was watching wrestling flash flood warning after flash flood warning was issued:  Fayette County, Raleigh County, Mercer County, Wyoming County, heck even Bland County VA had flash flood warnings issued to them.  But absolutely nothing about McDowell County.

Then I checked the outside window.  And it was the 2nd saddest sight that I had ever seen in my entire life.  The creek was flowing out of its banks, something I never dreamed I would see in my entire life.  My beloved grandparent's car was flooded in a matter of seconds.

Then the 1st saddest sight came.  Water had actually entered into the bottom door of my house.  I actually had to get out of there and ask my arch enemies for help.  That guy did so but did so very reluctantly. The only reason that he did it in my honest opinion is because God told him he had to or else.  Believe me you do a lot of praying to Jesus and God when your life is in your worst enemy's hands.

 He and I slowly climbed up the hill to the road on the hillside.  I actually thought climbing it would be much easier than what it was.  I never dreamed climbing it would be so difficult even when wet.  I almost fell twice.  My enemy threatened both times to leave me and only very reluctantly stuck out his hand.  Thank God we finally made to the road.  I was huffing and puffing and exhausted.  He wasn't.  And that guy was laughing his butt off and me and then left saying he had to help his family.

I was literally forced to stand for 2 hours in the heaviest rain I had ever seen in my life.  I was scared, crying, wondering if that would be the end.  All the roads into and out of that hollow were under water.

Then an ATV showed up.  Again a member of my enemy's family.  For some reason this time he was nicer to me than his cousin.  He took me to his parents who let me stay there for the evening. 

While I stayed at his parents I actually thought that my house had been spared.  I guess I just wanted to believe positively that my house could withstand it.  This husband and wife chain-smoked the whole time I was there.  They had just heard their son too was flooded out and were crying profusely.  I then asked them if I could check my house.  They agreed to do it.  I really should have stayed there but I wanted to go back so badly I wasn't rational at the time.

Everything was under water.  And I mean everything.  But I still thought that my house had escaped because the water was still below my floor. Then I had to wait another 2 hours standing outside crying my heart out.  I then went to my local Methodist church and prayed like I never did before.  Then two more people came and let me stay with them as they lived on the hillside above.  They were also of my enemy's family but they were the best people of that family.

I actually had a good stay with them overnight.  I just cannot sleep at a stranger's house.  I was tossing and turning for close to 10 hours because they got up late too.  Again though sadly my stay was short-lived because they told me that they had to help their flooded out daughter.

I couldn't understand why they didn't trust me.  I had never even done one bad thing to them.  Now I realize that a main reason thwy wouldn't let me stay with them another night was because they wanted me to do my business outside instead of the camode which was not working because the city water was off but wouldn't because of two very mean biting dogs that they loved to death.  Why did they love their dogs over me I wondered?

I finally then got to go back to my house.  But I was dead wrong in thinking that my house was spared.  My grandad's "pride and joy" his riding mower flipped upside down.  Mud and debris everywhere.  I was forced to sleep that night in my muddy house because no one would let me stay with them.  The next night another one of my enemy's family let me stay with him. 

Finally my family had been able to come and get me after the water receded and the roads were halfway dry.  I was scared and frightened and crying myself to death inside.  Finally after spending that whole time with my enemies I finally got to stay with my family and friends.  I moved two houses away from my mom and step-dad.  I was finally free as a bird.

But May 2, 2002 the second 100 year flood in a matter of 10 months struck.  My mom and step-dad were flooded out.  But thank God he did spare my house this time, as it was just trickling outside my door.  One more inch and my house would have been destroyed for a 2nd time. 

I still live in the same house today.  People sort of cringe when I say this but I know it's just a matter of time before I'm flooded out, this time for good.  I probably will have to leave McDowell County and relocate to the Bluewell-Brushfork-Bluefield area or to the Glenwood-Princeton area when that happens.  There is a young lady in my hometown that I like a lot.  Sadly when I do get flooded out I will be forced to leave her probably for good because God has blessed her and her mom with a house outside the flood plain, and even they said the May 2 flood got them with logs and coal debris.

Mullens destroyed.  Most of Welch destroyed.  Landgraff wiped completely off the map.  Kimball now with just one business in downtown even though it now has Wal-Mart.  Sadly at least 8 people lost their lives because of the July 8, 2001 flood and the May 2, 2002 flood just 10 months later.

Actually since it's way past my bedtime I will have to close this diary out.  If you do a Google search do a McDowell County Muddy Waters Song.  There will be a 5 minute song chronicling both floods. 

STOP MOUNTAIN TOP REMOVAL NOW! 

AND IF YOU'RE GOING TO LOG DO IT IN A RESPONSIBLE MANNER AND RECLAIM THE LAND!

I send my heartfelt condolences to those families of lost loved ones lost durning those destructive floods.  May God bless you all.