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8 The Strip Mining Dilemma and a Climactic Debate The removal of the steep slopes will bring a 100 percent improvement, and the ridge runners who have lived on these mountaintops will have a much better chance to develop corn patches into fields of ‘still’ raw materials, grazing crops, and farm homes instead of mountain shacks. W. E. E. Koepler, secretary, Pocahontas Operators Association, ca. 1930 My valley and hundreds like it throughout Appalachia and the nation are dying today from the cancer of strip mining for coal. Richard Cartwright Austin, Congressional committee testimony, 1971 The development of surface mining or what is commonly called strip mining (as briefly noted in chapter 1) posed one of the transcendent dilemmas in West Virginia and Appalachia brought about by the new machine age in the hills. The fight against strip mining formed an important part of the Appalachian reawakening in the late 1960s and early 1970s as substantial resistance emerged throughout central Appalachia, although in the end, facing insuperable odds, it failed to achieve its goal. The opposition to strip mining did not end, however, and continued as a major cause uniting regional grassroots organizations . The fight for a ban in West Virginia in 1971–72 shows some similarities and differences to the black lung and mine safety fights. Ultimately the threat of the proposed strip ban to the unity of underground and surface miners proved crucial. Some mineworker leaders understood that the advance of strip mining threatened the livelihood of underground miners and flirted with an alliance with the reformers . In this case, however, the leaders of the reformed UMWA came to feel that they could not afford to antagonize their fellow miners 287 The Strip Mining Dilemma and a Climactic Debate and abandoned the environmentalists. Without the miners’ support, so important in the black lung and mine safety fights, success proved elusive.1 Early Strip Mining Some strip mining had been carried out early in the twentieth century in northern and central West Virginia. In view of later developments , it is striking to discover that in the early years of Appalachian strip mining, large land companies in southern West Virginia, accustomed to doing business with timber and underground mining companies , opposed stripping and refused to grant leases to strip mining companies, citing concerns (not unlike those of environmentalists of more recent times) about the defacing of the earth’s surface, the loss of timber supplies, and the ruining of watersheds. In about 1930, W. E. E. Koepler, secretary of the Pocahontas Operators Association, told a Bluefield businessmen’s group that the resistance of land companies ended when strippers agreed to “timber loss clauses,” guaranteeing to recover all usable timber and to make it available for mine timbers to be used in underground mining. Koepler (sounding very much like surface mining defenders of more recent times) admitted that some resistance came from those who complained of the ugly consequences of stripping, but he dismissed the “scenic argument” against stripping by noting that few mining operations or coal towns were things of beauty. He acknowledged the horrible consequences strip mining had on agriculture, but he pointed out that England had laws requiring the restoration of surface-mined land for agricultural purposes. He suggested that the United States would do the same “in time,” and bluegrass could grow over reclaimed land. In the meantime , Koepler offered a glowing vision of the near-utopian future that surface mining might bring. It would improve coal country by leveling land and removing mountaintops for recreational purposes such as baseball fields. Aviation enthusiasts could build local airfields to connect with transcontinental passenger flights at Charleston and Roanoke. More land would be made available for the building of adequate industrial sites, and “the ridge runners who have lived on these mountain tops,” he declared, “will have a much better chance to develop corn patches into fields of ‘still’ raw materials, grazing 288 The Strip Mining Dilemma and a Climactic Debate crops, and farm homes instead of mountain shacks.” Moreover, he pointed out, the jobs in stripping would be more highly skilled than the typical mining jobs and would pay much higher wages. He did not note that fewer workers would be needed.2 Thereafter, some surface mining began in southern West Virginia, but during World War II, as strip mining doubled in the state, it remained mostly in central and northern counties.3 Shortages of miners during World War II led the federal Solid Fuels Administration to urge...

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