Analysis Of The Book ' Looks At The Coal History Of Her Hometown West Virginia ' Essay

In Appalachia laws had to be passed to keep coal companies from buying mineral rights and forcing people off of their land. If a company had the rights to the minerals under the property, they could mine without consent. It is hard to bear the thought of someone being that ruthless, but greed can drive man to do horrible things. Thankfully, laws were passed that helped the owners of the land, surface owners, to be compensated. The owner of the natural resources, mineral owners, must pay the land owner a royalty for extracting the natural resource from the property. Also, all damages done to the property were covered by the company ("Kentucky Division of Oil and Gas"). A small price to pay for multi-millionaires to increase their vast

Losing jobs due to the decrease in coal mines was a huge impact on the overall population decline in West Virginia. Coal mines were the largest source of income in West Virginia because that’s what we were born and raised to know. When our fathers and grandfathers turned sixteen, they quit school and went straight to the mines. There aren’t any more good-paying jobs in West Virginia. That’s why most people packed their things and left. They want to find something and somewhere else that would contribute to them.

I was raised in Harlan County. I have been to both Bell County and Evarts and coal is still a huge part of these counties today. My daddy and my papaw and his daddy come from a long line of coal miners. People I have went to

To start, coal mining has created thousands of jobs. According to West Virginia Coal Facts, “West Virginia coal employment had 26, 619 employees” (Source C) as of 2013. Coal mining has created jobs for the citizens of West Virginia. People come to

In the narrow valleys of rural Appalachia, a war on coal is being waged over The Last Mountain. This war inadvertently affects every American who uses even the slightest morsel of electricity. The Last Mountain is a controversial documentary produced by Bill Haney showing the horrors of mountain top removal coal mining. Released in the year 2011, The Last Mountain’s filmmakers have brought necessary attention to the horrendous conditions endured by citizens whom dwell in towns proximal to the sites where mountain top removal is practiced. This film shows how the local communities of these towns, along with political leaders such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr are fighting big name corporations to cease the act of mountain top removal coal mining.

Coal mining is dangerous but if the people mining want to take that risk let them. It was their choice to become a coal miner. Also we are making advanced technology to help coal miners. In passage 2 it says, "Technology has improved mining safety. It has also helped coal burn cleaner, which lessens the environmental impact." They also have better safety equipment.

Virginia is most known for it’s biggest economy, industry and agriculture. The main agricultural resource is Tobacco. Tobacco is important to Virginian farmers because Virginia gets thirty percent of its money from tobacco. In addition tobacco is mined in ninety- three percent of Virginia’s farms. Some say that tobacco should represent the state but beneath the mountains of southwestern Virginia, situates a mineral so valuable to Virginians, this mineral's name is coal. Coal is very valuable to Virginia since much of the US don’t have many coal mines so Virginia can sell some for money. However, coal is very dangerous. In the past there was a disease that many coal miners died from because they had been breathing bad air

In Chapter 2: Coal Colonies, Goodell (2006) describes the poverty, corporate exploitation, and other difficulties of mining life under the Massey Energy Corporation in West Virginia. These coal mining “colonies” show the power of corporate dominance over miners, the local ecology, and coal production.

The coal mining and anthracite region faced many challenges throughout the years, and still faces many struggles today. The coal mining and anthracite region was a very bumpy road for everyone. The levels of coal within the industry have varied over time and with the help of new technology, more coal was being found. The coal was now being used for other sources, specifically moving the coal around the world by trains and ships. Also, there were many ways that coal was found, and the ways that it has developed over time

With its rolling hills and breathtaking foliage, Central Appalachia is home to some of America 's most beautiful views, attracting thousands of tourists to the region each year. However, Central Appalachia is also home to vast deposits of energy resources, mainly coal. In order to extract this supply of cheap energy, mining companies have turned to a practice called mountaintop removal mining, or simply mountaintop mining. Mountaintop mining is a form of surface mining that involves removing the tops and sides of a summit in order to more quickly and efficiently remove underlying coal deposits. Although this kind of mining is cheaper than traditional subsurface methods, its social and environmental costs are steep, making it a major source of contention in both the Central Appalachian region and America as a whole. Elements of mountaintop removal mining that have contributed to its controversial nature are how it affects the economies of surrounding communities, leads to poor bodily health, and warps the natural beauty and biodiversity of the Appalachian environment.

Just north of Chillicothe, Ohio, the land changes from flat, black-soil farmland to rolling, coal-filled hills. The place becomes increasingly familiar to me—the green sign for Jesus In the Hills Camp, the brown sign for Leo Petroglyph, friends and relative 's homes—and as I navigate the slopes and curves that lead me back to my childhood home in Jackson, a pleasant nostalgia begins to take some of the tension out of the muscles around my neck and shoulders. After a decade of twisting and contorting myself into an unsuitable life in Christian ministry, I began to write and my attention turned back to my home, to that familiar landscape. I found the beauty in the cultural distinctiveness once taken for granted, even held in contempt. I had been fed, clothed and educated by money made from mining coal, and I am the product of a family that valued work and the love of the written word as a conduit for understanding and contextualizing our place in the world. And so, this is what I write about, the place and the people I know.

Mountain top removal often occurs in states such as West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. These states are rich in coal deposits and have many areas where mining may occur. Quite often, coal companies use huge deposits of coal to make money, but mining these areas have been damaging to the Appalachian region for decades. Environmental issues have become apparent with massive flooding, rock slides, water contamination, and sludge impoundment (Community). All of these have become major issues within communities among the eastern region, because they may cause a community or environment to lose its significance.

For decades poverty, mining companies, and mining practices have ravaged Appalachia. The mountains and rivers have been destroyed through mountain top removal and the pollution associated with that process. Communities broken apart by coal and the poverty of modern mining techniques. With the new ban on coal this process will only continue, unless something is done about it. While limited economic opportunities exist in the status quo, the manufacturing, construction, and upkeep of a large wind network across Eastern Kentucky would provide a large increase in job opportunities for those in Appalachia. The SFA mandates job training for former miners and this large production network would certainly open up new jobs across Kentucky. Placing an emphasis on economic development needs to be coupled with a program of social justice in order to be successful. Government must set the tone

According to the New York Times, Luke Popovich, a representative for the National Mining Association argued that mine owners needed to dump mine waste into streams and valleys in order to operate in West Virginia’s mountainous train(). Federal courts have ruled against issuing permits to fill in the valleys and streams due to its violation of the Clean Water Act. However, Massey Energy has been allowed to continue mountain top removal mining. Why do you ask? Because a Federal judge believes the most of the damage to the land is already done (). How could anyone allow this to happen, why would a person want to destroy the natural beauty of this land? The answer to this question is very simple, money. West Virginia holds some of the world’s richest low sulfur coal which is a valuable source of energy ().

To start off, actions done because of money by humans contributes to the demise of the planet. In Breakfast of Champions, this is observed by main character Kilgore Trout during his journey. While hitchhiking to Midland City and crossing West Virginia, Trout notes that the surface is demolished by people trying to get to the coal. He points out that “the surface of the State had been demolished by men and machinery and explosives in order to make it yield up its coal. The coal was mostly gone now. It had been turned into heat” (Vonnegut 123). The destruction of West Virginia was caused for the purpose of retrieving coal, to get money and to use as energy as it “had been turned into heat”, and now there it is barren, with “its coal and trees and topsoil gone”. The narrator tells us that “the demolition of West Virginia had taken place with the approval of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the State Government, which drew their power from the people” (123). The population of West Virginia decided lawfully that the coal be mined, and when it was gone, they abandoned it, “here and there an inhabited dwelling still