Lieberman vs. the Miners

The New York Sun ^ | July 29, 2002 | Unknown/Staff?

[Auntie Mame]

Amid all the justifiable rejoicing over the rescue of the nine miners who had been trapped underground in a Pennsylvania coal mine, it’s worth asking what they were doing underground to begin with. And the answer to that question involves two names that wouldn’t ordinarily come to mind when it comes to mining coal: Senator Lieberman of Connecticut and a 30-year-old rock star named Kevin Richardson, a member of a group called the Backstreet Boys.

There are two main kinds of mines, underground and surface. Surface mines — also known as strip mines or mountaintop mines — are increasingly common. As a safety Web site maintained by the New York State Department of Labor puts it, surface mining, “usually is less hazardous than underground mining.” In West Virginia, surface coal mines were responsible for about 37% of the state’s 175 million tons of coal produced in 2001. But surface coal mines were responsible for only about 23% of the 13 mining fatalities in the state that year and only 25% of the 1,167 coal-mine injuries that were reported to the state and were serious enough to mean time lost from work.*

Surface mining creates more waste material than underground mining, and this waste material needs to go somewhere. That is an opportunity for Mr. Lieberman to get involved. The Connecticut Democrat, chairman of the Clean Air, Wetlands and Climate Change Subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, just last month held a hearing of his subcommittee to declare, “if this type of mining must continue, the waste created by this practice and others must be disposed of in compliance with the Clean Water Act. That’s the law — and for years, it’s shameful that our own government wasn’t following it.”

The Bush administration had tried to change the federal rules to make it easier to use the waste to fill valleys. But Mr. Lieberman was having none of it. And neither was the star witness at his June hearing, Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys. Mr. Richardson didn’t just testify at the hearing — he followed up with a press conference with that other celebrity environmentalist, Robert F. Kennedy, which was sponsored by all the usual environmentalist advocacy groups, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resources Defense Council. These are the types that a Democratic presidential candidate needs to court to win his party’s nomination.

Maybe this is why a Democratic state like West Virginia gave its electoral votes to Governor Bush in the last election. Think of it — had the strip mining state** gone the other way, Al Gore and Mr. Lieberman would be running the country. Instead the senator from the Nutmeg state was presiding over a hearing at which a senior legislative counsel of the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, Joan Mulhern, fretted in her testimony about the damage that surface coal mining would do to “forest birds” and “aquatic life.” She suggested an alternative: “underground mines generate much less waste rock and dirt than surface mines.”

The kind of mine the nine men in Pennsylvania were stuck in, of course, was a more dangerous underground mine, not a safer strip mine. It wouldn’t be the first time Mr. Lieberman put saving the environment over saving lives. He also voted for higher average fuel economy standards, which studies show mean smaller, lighter, more dangerous cars. Anyway, the next time the 2004 presidential candidate and the rock star hold a hearing on mining, his colleagues might press him to pay a little less attention to waste disposal, “forest birds” and “aquatic life” and a little more to the lives of the guys that the environmentalists seem to want to keep stuck in the shafts.

* www.state.wv.us/mhst/Stats.htm

**Its motto is “Mountaineers Are Always Free.”

Copyright 2002 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC. All rights reserved.

[PhiKapMom]

Thanks for posting this!

[cva66snipe]

Strip mines can work and the land reclaimed for a rather cheap price. I would suggest that Lieberman come to the Cumberland Mountains in East Tennessee. A group of Engineers saw potential in using the natural streams as settling ponds for the run off. In just a few years the desolate earth and dead streams were once again supporting life and vegitation.

The Engineers however may be in direct conflict with the Lieberman crowd as they insist on taking a portion of the trees as payment for their rather radical reclaiming labors. The engineers BTW are BEAVERS! Yes the mountains show scars but the eco system in general is now intact depite mans interference. And doesn't Gore operate a mine on his family property? I think so.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

.

[DentsRun]

Strip mines can work and the land reclaimed for a rather cheap price. I would suggest that Lieberman come to the Cumberland Mountains in East Tennessee. A group of Engineers saw potential in using the natural streams as settling ponds for the run off. In just a few years the desolate earth and dead streams were once again supporting life and vegitation

My late dad had a hunting camp in Elks County, Pennsylvania (on Dents Run if you want to know where my handle comes from). A nearby mountain was heavily strip mined over the last decade or so. Now it's been covered over, trees and grass are growing. It's become the primary site for viewing wild elk in the eastern United States. In Pennsylvania trees grow the way grass does in other states. In thirty years the place will be the forest primeval and environmentalists will be up there hugging trees till the sap squirts out.

[struwwelpeter]

Here in the eastern Ukraine the mines go pretty deep, and the trailings pile up high in scenic "terakony". In the town of Antratsit is the Komsomolsk mine which is over 1800 meters deep - more than a mile down. A few weeks ago it caught fire for the umpteenth time and the "brigadir" sent the next shift down anyway: ten dead.

Last year in Donetsk the Zasyadka mine blew out, taking ninety miners with it.

Some friends who used to be "shakhtyory" (miners) told that a day didn't go by when they weren't pulling someone's squashed corpse out from under rubble. When I told them about how the US was glued to their TVs, worrying about nine miners a few hundred feet down, they were amazed.

[aculeus]

NY Sun bump!

[Auntie Mame]

Great addition to this story. Thanks.

[11B3]

Thanks for your addition to this post - and for the photos as well. I have often wondered what the conditions were like in the mines in your part of the world, and I guess I got my answer. May your friends who mine stay safe - regardless of what the brigadirs tell them!

Back home in South Dakota there is a gold mine (Homestake) that was over 14,000 feet down (4km) - rock temperature 158 degrees F. Even they didn't pile up the tailings like your photo.

[Temple Owl]

Love that SUN! All you NYC Freepers ought to drop the NYT and subscribe to a fair and balanced newspaper.

[Auntie Mame]

I can only see what they put on their website (I'm out of the area, although I tried to sign up anyway), which is very little, but so far, it's impressive.

[Auntie Mame]

In thirty years the place will be the forest primeval and environmentalists will be up there hugging trees till the sap squirts out.

LOL!

[struwwelpeter]

Miners are the salt in the earth. Someone please buy those guys and beer on us and we'll go let some candles in thanks to Saint Barbara - the patron saint of mining.

There is some justice, though. The underdog Donetsk Diggers (WAXTEP) took the Ukrainian national championship. Beat Kiev 1-0 and 3-2, and stomped Dnepro, L'vov, and all the other surface stervy. Shakhtyor Champion!

[Pokey78]

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