In the face of a presidential call to break the country's dependence on fossil fuels such as coal, Gov. Joe Manchin III defended the state's premier export.
President Obama, in his first Oval Office address Tuesday, called the BP oil spill "the most painful and powerful reminder" that "the time to embrace a clean energy future is now." Manchin, in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review hours before Obama's address, said coal remains the most important energy source in the country and pushed back against efforts to move away from it.
He said the Obama administration risks "self-inflicted economic pain" in its quest to curtail carbon emissions and spur renewable energy development.
"The bottom line is, they continue to try to over-regulate and over-tax," said Manchin, a Democrat. "I'm not being critical. I'm being very factual with what I see."
The 7th Annual Friends of Coal Auto Fair is set for July 16 – 18 at the YMCA Paul Cline Memorial Youth Sports Complex in Beckley, WV. Friday, July 16 will begin the Fair with the Cruise-In to uptown Beckley for the Renaissance Car Show and live entertainment by former American Idol contestant and Beckley native, Robbie Carrico.
Saturday will have the Live in Concert by The Charlie Daniels Band and Taylor Made, with special appearances by The Gold Knights Army Parachute Team and FOC spokesmen Coach Nehlen, Coach Pruett and Bass Master Jeremy Starks. Tickets ($15.00 advance & $20.00 day of show) for the Concert will go on sale May 1st at select WV & VA Marquee Cinemas and the Beckley-Raleigh County YMCA.
SB-696, otherwise known as the Alexander/Cardin or the “Mountaintop Mining” Bill, is on the move in the U.S. Senate. The bill would essentially ban surface mining in West Virginia and threatens thousands of mining jobs across the state and Appalachia.
Co-sponsored by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Ben Cardin (D-MD), the bill currently sits in committee. It is our understanding that the bill will likely be “marked up” during the next two weeks, a process which precedes a committee vote in which it will likely pass.
June 2, 2010 Huntington WV 25701 Rebecca Woddard President, American Rivers
Rebecca: Your research in naming the Gauley River one of the ten most endangered rivers because of mountaintop removal surface mining was next to nothing. The Gauley River watershed lies in parts of Nicholas, Clay, Webster, Fayette, Greenbrier, and Pocahontas Counties WV. There is only one MTR mining operation in the entire watershed, the one on Twentymile Creek watershed , not Peters Creek.. It is located in Clay and Nicholas Counties and is tiny in terms of production and acreage disturbed compared to the total in five counties: Boone, Kanawha, Logan, Mingo, and Raleigh Counties WV. The operation is not a true MTR, its life is very limited, and it poses no significant threat to the Gauley. Moreover, Twentymile empties into a stream that empties a few miles downstream into the Gauley at Belva which is several miles downstream from the segment of the Gauley where whitewater rafting is so popular. Belva is only some 8 miles from the mouth of the Gauley at Gauley Bridge.
There are comparatively very little coal reserves in the Gauley watershed which can feasibly be mined by the MTR or any other surface mining method. This is because the geology is very different than that found within the latter group of counties and three adjacent ones that together are commonly called the Southern WV Coalfield. The Kanawha Formation outcrops widely in these five counties and contains all the coal seams in its upper section that are MTR mined in that coalfield. The coal seams MTR mined are thick, numerous, and lie relatively close to each other vertically, as opposed to different coal seams widely occurring in the Gauley watershed which are thin, few, and do not lie relatively close to each other vertically. This combination of natural occurrences plus the low sulfur content of the coal seams are the main reasons why MTR mining is economical in the Southern WV Coal Field. It is absent within the Gauley watershed except in the immediate vicinity of the Twentymile mine.
The comments I have made on geology and MTR mining can be verified by contacting the West Virginia Geological Survey and WV DEP.
If Gauley River ranks among the ten most endangered in your opinion, the rivers in this country are in much better shape than I had supposed.
I'm sorry to say you are guilty of irresponsible journalism and badly misleading the public, especially the supporters of American Rivers which include me.
The West Virginia Coal Association (WVCA) hereby submits the following comments and observations regarding the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to revoke the Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 404 permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to Mingo-Logan Coal Company for its Spruce No. 1 Mine (Spruce) in West Virginia.
