090430Kernelinprint-Coal

urface mining in its active phase is ugly.

Everyone seems to agree on that, from the coal company executives

to the UK students who intern there and especially to the university’s

anti-coal activists. What they don’t agree on is the future of coal mining,

energy consumption and reclaiming the abandoned mine lands.

With coal consumption expected to rise, the activists want answers

now, while the coal companies say the technology is not available, or

affordable.

The only certainty: No one has reconciled the future of coal.

WWW.KYKERNEL.COMA special section to the

THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2009

Future of coalD E B A T E S R A G E I N S E A R C H F O R A N S W E R S O N T H E

KENTUCKY KERNEL

A coal truck drives down a mountain near Van Lear, Ky., in Johnson County after being filled at a surface mine. Johnson County yielded over 2 million tons of coal in 2007, according to the Ken-tucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Kentucky produced 115 million tons of coal in 2007, which is approximately 2.5 million legal coal truckloads. That number of trucks would wrap around the world a little over one time.

Top: Mining engineering senior Tyler Wright prepares a drilled hole to be blasted on top of a strip mine. Wright and four other UK students interned at International Coal Group inPerry County, Ky., over Winter Break. Above left: Nate Waters hugs his niece, Maggie Mae, 3, goodbye after coming home to Strunk, Ky., for a family visit. Waters, a mining engi-neer, said he missed his niece’s birth because he was in Wyoming, working at a coal mine. Above right: Scott Beckmeyer, co-organizer of UK Greenthumb and agricultural engineer-ing senior, pumps his fists in protest of a coal power plant in Washington, D.C. He and 5,000 other people blocked off all the entrances to the plant in March in protest of coal.

Stories and photos by Brad Luttrell | [email protected]

S

I have been around coal for as longas I can remember, but I never reallyquestioned coal mining until I came tocollege.

My grandfather died of complicationsrelated to black lung, even though thecompany officials told him to just coughup the coal dust and he would be fine. Acoal mine collapse killed one of mycousins, and another collapse put an uncleon disability. Another one of my unclesdied in a car crash on his way back fromwork, again in the mines. My great-grandfather helped start the union in Har-lan County, Ky. by meeting with otherminers at night in the woods to get organ-ized. It was too dangerous to even speakof opposing the coal companies in thosedays, and gun fights and murders gavemy home county its infamous name,“Bloody Harlan.”

I never really thought of the environ-mental or economic consequences be-cause coal miners provided for their fami-ly.

My other grandfather would take mewith him on trips to get mine equipment,which he worked on and also sold asscrap metal. My cousins and I used to dig

up his yard, using plastic bulldozers to re-move tiny mountains, which we hauledoff in toy coal trucks. Now, of the four ofus, I’m the only one who does not workon a surface mine, where real trucks arecarrying out millions of tons a year.

After four years of college, I’ll begraduating to make nothing near whatthey are paid on a strip mine, blasting offthe tops of mountains and hauling out theblack gold.

My cousins, grandparents and unclesare not the enemy. The same coal theyblast out of a mountain, you are usingright now. If you used electricity today –watch television, flip any light switches,refrigerate your food or walk into anymodern building – then you are as mucha part of the problem as the coal compa-nies.

Mountaintop removal is an unsightlyprocess. When working on these stories, Inever heard a single person involved withthe industry say they like seeing moun-tains blasted apart. In fact, they admit it’sugly seeing them ripped of trees and topsblown off. But that statement was alwaysfollowed up with justification – what elseare we to do?

The anti-coal activists have about asmany answers to that question as the min-ers have tons produced per year in Ken-tucky (well over 100 million). It’s wind,solar and nuclear. But renewable energieswill have to come from an industry otherthan coal. It’s unlikely any coal companywill spend the millions of dollars it wouldtake to kill their business. Why shouldthey? Coal demand is expected to in-crease after the recession.

That’s not to say there are no coalminers who aren’t interested in the dis-cussion. Mining engineer Nate Watersbelieves if you’re going to blast a moun-tain off, you need to do your best to fix it.He also loves to talk about the future ofenergy. And so does Erik Reece, an anti-coal activist who teaches at UK. But theyare coming from starkly different sides,and the discussions usually end unproduc-tively.

There is enough coal in the U.S. tomine for 225 more years. Reece believesan energy crisis may be upon us in 10.Waters said he plans on mining for hisentire life.

After talking to both sides extensivelyfor months now, I’m not sure where I

stand on coal. I know I am far more con-scious of my light switch staying on, andthat every day when I walk past UK’scoal pile on campus I think about how itpowers every thing we do, from the com-puter I am typing on, to the lights that areon in a classroom right now.

I hope this story engages discussionon campus, but more than anything, Ihope you will be more conscious of yourenergy usage, and maybe just flip theswitch off when you leave a room, orturn the air conditioner off in your apart-ment when you’re gone for the weekend.

Even if you don’t have four or fivegenerations of coal history, you’re a partof coal’s history in Kentucky. We all are.

Future of energy use depends on discussion

Brad Luttrell is a journalism senior.

Continue the coal conversation:

kykernel.com and e-mail [email protected]

Erik Reece and Don Gibson are out-spoken about coal use, but the only thingthey can manage to agree on is thinkingthe other is wrong.

Reece, who teaches English at UK, isone of Kentucky’s most dynamic anti-coalactivists, who gained national attention forhis article “Death of a Mountain,” pub-lished in Harper’s Magazine and for writ-ing a book, “Lost Mountain: A Year in theVanishing Wilderness,” that told the storyof a mountain’s demise due to mining inPerry County, Ky.

Gibson is a coal company executivewho has spent his career extracting coal,and, if it’s necessary, removing a moun-taintop to do it. He is also highly involvedin the reclamation of these mountains, orreturning the original vegetation. Gibsonis director, permitting and regulatory af-fairs for International Coal Group in PerryCounty, which is the second-highest coal-producing county in the state, with 12.7million tons per year.

On principles alone, it seems to makesense why the two might not see eye toeye, but it’s much more complicated thanthat.

Jump back five years, when Reece de-cided to write his book. He chose a moun-tain called Lost Mountain simply becausea year later, after the strip job was com-plete and all the coal was extracted, “thismountain really would be lost,” Reecesaid.

After a year of driving to the mountainand watching the company “incognito,”Reece gave up on Lost Mountain. “Therewasn’t much more to see or say. Onlymore of the same,” he wrote in his book.

But Gibson, who works for the com-pany that was licensed to mine coal inPerry County, said there was a lot more tosee.

“I kind of felt that, as I’m sure was hispoint, he was trying to make us out to bethe bad guy,” Gibson said. “He didn’t tryto portray anyone from this company astrying to be honest with him or workingwith him on it.”

Other than feeling misrepresented acouple of times, one of Gibson’s biggestproblems with Reece’s book was that it

was published before the land could be re-claimed and restored by the company, In-ternational Coal Group.

But Reece doesn’t have much faith inreclamation and doesn’t even agree withthe term because he doesn’t believe any-thing is restored.

“I’ve never seen a mountain restoredto its original contour,” he said. “Which iswhat the law says has to happen.”

Reece said he has never seen ginsengor wildflowers put back on a mountain.

“You hear a lot of people say thatreclamation is putting lipstick on acorpse,” Reece said. “What you’re doingis replacing the biologically diverseecosystem in North America with a mono-culture, one species of grass.”

But Gibson believes his company ison the forefront of many improvements,such as putting honeybees back into Ken-tucky’s ecosystems and sticking to nativewildlife.

“Since ICG came into existence in Oc-tober of 2004, we’ve planted in the neigh-borhood of half a million trees, all nativehardwoods,” Gibson said.

Atop what used to be the summit of

the mountain, now reclaimed to Gibson,and considered a desert by Reece, are hun-dreds of American chestnut saplings,planted by local students during the Ken-tucky Arbor Day Festival on Lost Moun-tain hosted by International Coal Group.

Gibson said he believes the site is animprovement over what it was, which tohim was unusable, unlevel land.

“Without level land in Eastern Ken-tucky, you’re either on stilts or in a floodplain,” Gibson said.

This argument is actually the first tocome to mind for Reece when asked whatmakes him mad about the coal industry.

“They like to say they’re creating flatland for people,” he said. “They’ve creat-ed so much flat land now in Eastern Ken-tucky you could put the city of Louisvilledown. There’s not enough people there forthat kind of development.”

Reece decided to write his book afterseeing how much of the flat land, or“wasteland” as he calls it, surrounded oneof his favorite natural habitats — UK’sRobinson Forest.

Reece just realized he couldn’t writeabout this place in a celebratory way with-

out also writing about the forces that de-stroy it, Reece said.

After researching all the new applica-tions for permits, not even sure what hewas looking for, Reece found one for LostMountain, and said the name was so iron-ic, it was perfect to tell the story of stripmining from beginning to end.

But to get the whole story, Reece felthe had to do it his way.

If you visit a strip mine with the com-pany, they won’t show you where they’renot in compliance with the law, Reecesaid.

So, he trespassed once or twice amonth for an entire year to see what washappening on Lost Mountain.

Gibson remembers Reece being foundby miners on the site and said the compa-ny offered to have him hazard-certifiedand give him tours of the land.

Several times in Reece’s book he de-scribes being surprised by explosions anddodging flyrock, the earth that is liftedinto the air from a blast of ammonium ni-trate and fuel oil combination.

“Of course we are blasting up there. Ifyou’re out there on foot, it’s not a safeplace to be,” Gibson said.

With alarms sounding before eachblast that can be heard half a mile away, aguided person would be safe, said UK stu-dent Nate Waters, a company intern andsoon-to-be employee.

However, Gibson is very open thathe’s not sure they ever would have givenReece the clearance he wanted. For thatclearance, Reece repeatedly parked histruck at the foot of the mountain andhiked what he figures was over 100 milesafter the entire year.

“There’s really no way to report on anindustry as corrupt as coal without goingbehind the scenes,” Reece said over fouryears after his last monthly trip to themountain.

When Reece said he told Gibson thatit was nothing personal with his company,he just liked the name, “Lost Mountain,”Gibson only had two words for him.

“Lucky us.”

Erik Reece, seen here in front of UK’s coal pile on Upper Street, is an anti-coal activist at UKwho thinks the state is ready to stop using coal.

Coal executive, activist disagree on results of mining

Kentucky coal factsThe only two states that produce more coal than

Kentucky are West Virginia and Wyoming. The most recent report showed 417 mines in Kentucky.

115 million

2.5 million

1 time

Number of short tons of coal Kentucky produced in 2007

Number of legal truck loads to carry 2007’s production

Number of times 2.5 million coal trucks wrap around the planet

Short tons (2,000 pounds) produced according to U.S. Department of Labor

DIGGING INTO THE NUMBERS

Above: Between two coal plants on campus, UK burns about 40,000 tons of coal a year, Physical Plant Manager JohnZachem said. This coal plant is located on Upper Street next to the Peterson Service Building. Top right: Coal sifts down to be burned at the coal plant on Upper Street. This coal heats water, which makes steam thatcranks a turbine to create electricity.

GRAPHIC BY BRAD LUTTRELL | STAFF

Coal is burned to heat water, which is then turned to steam. The steamwill rise and spin a turbine, which then turns the electric generator rotor tocreate electricity.

UK burns about 40,000 to 42,000 tons of coal a year, Physical Plant Man-ager John Zachem said. He said UK is paying $147 per ton this year, andpaid $87 per ton last year, and $93 the year before. Coal rates have gone upand natural gas rates have dropped, but UK still finds that coal is the cheap-er fuel, Zachem said.

PAGE A4 | Thursday, April 30, 2009