Coal and Mortality in Appalachia and Making History

Comment: Mt Top Removal should never been allowed in any state but my home state of Virginia has ruin people lives for the profit of coal corporations, this needs to stop now! However, open pit uranium mining will ruin the rest of our lovely state! The state of Virginia needs to stop bowing down to corporations and take care of her citizens. Nuke and Coal Corp are going to ruin our state, ruin our homes, ruin our land, ruin our air, and make our families sick! Ban uranium mining and Mt. Top Removal!


Published by danawv, June 22nd, 2009

This is a historic week in the coalfields of Appalachia. A historic study quantifying the cost of coal in the form of human lives has come out (see below), and an historic action will take place in Coal River Valley on Tuesday.

And for the first time in over a generation we have legislation to end mountaintop removal proposed in both chambers of Congress and a hearing scheduled in the Senate. THURSDAY,

JUNE 25, 2009 3:30 p.m. Room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building there will be a hearing to discuss MTR’s impacts on water — please come, but if you can’t, invite your Senator to attend by dialing (202) 224-3121 or email them to come out to the hearing.

And in case you’re still not sure how you feel about coal — a new study recently released has found that coal lowers life expectancy — not a surprise to those living in coalfield communities. This study assigns a monetary value to the human life lost and finds that coal comes up $34 billion short each year. Please note that carbon capture and sequestration does NOT prevent this loss of human life. The estimated number of lives lost each year to destructive coal practices is 1,736 and 2,889 people. Hendryx and Ahern measure that these human beings are collectively worth about $42 billion. The coal industry contributes $8 billion in revenue.

Assigning a monetary value to a human life is a cruel bottom line, but the premature death of thousands of good people — in the Appalachian region alone — each year is crueler still. This study illustrates this tragic loss of human life for “cheap” energy in a way that coal companies and governments understand — cold hard cash.

One hopes that this study will wake our government up, that officials will realize human lives are worth even more than money, and the swift transition to a healthy, sustainable economy begins as soon as possible. More info on the study after the jump.

Coal’s costs outweigh benefits, WVU study finds

By Ken Ward Jr.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Coal mining costs Appalachians five times more in early deaths as the industry provides to the region in jobs, taxes and other economic benefits, according to a groundbreaking new study co-authored by a West Virginia University researcher.

In the latest in a series of papers, WVU researcher Michael Hendryx questions the idea that coal is good for West Virginia and other Appalachian communities, and recommends that political leaders consider other alternatives for improving the region’s economy and quality of life.

“Coal-mining economies are not strong economies,” Hendryx said in an interview last week. “[Coalfield communities] are weaker than the rest of the state, weaker than the rest of the region, and weaker than the rest of the nation.”

Writing with co-author Melissa Ahern of Washington State University, Hendryx reports that the coal industry generates a little more than $8 billion a year in economic benefits for the Appalachian region.

But, Hendryx and Ahern put the value of premature deaths attributable to the mining industry across the Appalachian coalfields at — by their most conservative estimate — $42 billion.

“The human cost of the Appalachian coal mining economy outweighs its economic benefits,” they wrote.

http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/06/22/coal-and-mortality-in-appalachia-and-making-history/

Wake up and fight, folks, Uranium offers empty economic promises

Comment: Great Letters!!! Santoy will take 60-80 per cent profit back to Canada, VUI group will move to the islands, our County will have 2 huge open pits which will poison our water, air, land, animals, plants, poison the Military bases at Virginia Beach!!!!! Uranium Mining & Milling will kill the Chesapeake Bay too!!!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 10:07 AM EDT

Uranium offers empty economic promises

This letter is in answer to a letter from Philip Shelton of Blairs published in your paper on May 20, 2009.

I have read your letter regarding the issue of mining uranium in Pittsylvania County where you state, hopefully, that this industry will be such a boon to our economy that our taxes will be reduced.

Let me state now that if this industry is allowed to mine uranium we will lose the enrollment of both Chatham Hall and Hargrave Military Academy.

Both of these institutions are a prime source of local tax revenue.

No one who knows anything about the past history of this industry with its widespread elevations of cancers, birth defects, and death would dare to send their children to a school that is within five miles of an open-pit uranium mine.

Further, if you study the records of uranium mining sites out west, where the industry has tried, unsuccessfully, to mine uranium without harming the environment or the surrounding population for years, you will note that in each case, the cleanup of toxic waste sites is left up to the local taxpayers to foot the bill.

Mr. Shelton, are you aware that Mr. Coles has sold Virginia Uranium Inc. to a Canadian mining company named Santoy?

Why would he sell out? Why is a Canadian mining company buying Virginia Uranium?

The answer is that Santoy's mining operations have been closed down by the Canadian government because of the pollution mines have caused in Canada.

Additionally, VUI has promised record employment here in Pittsylvania County. This is a bald lie.

Their plan states that they will use experienced mining personnel as well as students from the newly formed nuclear science school at Virginia Tech.

VUI claims it will produce 300 to 500 jobs in the county. How can we believe that when, nationwide, the uranium mining industry employs considerably less than 500 people in mining uranium?

It is only through knowledge of the problems of the uranium mining industry that you may begin to realize what a disaster we are in for if the existing moratorium were to be lifted.

I suggest that you, and anyone else who wishes to inform themselves about this industry, study what has gone on before now, worldwide, with the mining and milling of uranium.

I have come to love this area of Virginia and the people who reside here. It is for this reason that I will continue to educate myself and anyone who will listen to the dangers of the uranium mining industry.

I am not, to quote your letter, an "anti-everything" person. However, with what I know I am an anti-uranium mining, tree-hugging resident of Pittsylvania County.

Hunter Austin
Hurt

http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2009/06/03/chatham/opinion/opinion02.txt

Wake up and fight, folks

I am so frustrated by our populace's belief in the uranium "study." Study of what?

How much money the investors of a Canadian company will make?

How much money Walter Coles and friends will make?

How much money everyone other than these people will lose by being subjected to the loss of their livelihoods and lives by having one of the most hazardous and toxic businesses in the world located in their backyards?

Please wake up and fight, folks.

We need every voice.

Linda Worsley
Chatham

http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2009/06/03/chatham/opinion/opinion03.txt