Coal in KY forum

Today the University of Kentucky hosted a forum about the future of coal in Kentucky. Speakers ranging from mine managers to elementary school teachers gathered for the day long conference at the Hilary J. Boone center on the University campus.

According to Jason Bailey, research and policy director of Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED), coal production peaked in the mid-nineties and has been on a steady decline since. This decline would be exacerbated by regulations like Waxman-Markey which bring to light some of the phantom external costs currently burdening citizens instead of corporations.

Proponents of the coal industry argue that without coal, many places in Central Appalachia would have no viable economic solutions. Former Governor Paul Patton went so far as to call coal "Our Toyota" a reference to the plant opened in 1988 in Georgetown, KY which heralded a resurgence of the economy in the Bluegrass. Patton went on to compare ending reliance on coal because of human dangers to asking society to stop driving because accidents occur on roadways. As for the environment, he added this "If you want to talk about the environment, well, 25% of methane released in this country comes from cows, but is anyone saying we shouldn't eat steak?"

Even so, coal mining directly provides only 1% of jobs in the entire state of Kentucky. That number expands if indirect jobs, truck drivers for example, are included. According to Wayne Rutherford, Judge-Executive in Pike Co., there are 4,666 miners employed in Pike Co. alone. Further, many miners live in Pike Co. and work in the industry in other counties, which, he claims, distorts the economic picture.

What is clear is that Kentucky paid a net subsidy of almost $115 million to the coal industry in 2006. This state support continues despite a study from WVU Research Professor Michael Hendryx linking increased mortality in non-miners due to exposure to mining and its effects.

Missing from the early sessions were references to MTR, or mountain top removal, coal mining. A process which involves clearing a seam of coal from under its 'overburden', which is often dumped into neighboring valleys. To date 1200 miles of streams and 1 million acres of land have been laid to waste in Appalachia, 600 thousand of those acres in Kentucky alone. Despite this, and coal advocates claims that flat land is beneficial for future economic development, only 3% of land leveled by mining has been used to date.

The result, according to Suzanne Tallichet, Professor of Sociology at Morehead State University, is Appalachia as an 'internal colony'. This is a variation of Dependency Theory, the idea that wealth flows from the undeveloped periphery to the wealthy, developed core. In this case the periphery is internalized, resulting in a warped socio-economic structure that extracts resources from one region to fuel another.

Many assertions about the harm brought to the region by coal mining were met with subdued laughter and occasional mockery.

Despite the fact that the room was filled with Coal insiders the anti-regulation crowd felt ill at ease. Several times both Gov. Patton and Judge-Executive Rutherford seemed on guard, making claims that "...we [Pike] are a completely Green county..." and "Coal is under siege." More unsettling was Gov. Patton's suggestion that coal opposition originates in the Northeast and is based on a jealousy of the "economic advantages" provided to our region by cheap energy.

These economic advantages include KY being the 47th poorest state in the country. A look into census data reveals that 29 of the poorest counties by household in the USA are in KY and that almost all of those are in the Appalachian region of the state, known for its coal production. For all the good that the Industry likes to talk about, the bottom line just isn't there.