By Eugene C. Kelley
On my morning commute today I drove past many of the same old local attractions. A decrepit railroad bridge spanning a stretch of river near its convergence with a smaller waterway where red and orange dusty mud spewing from underground mines covers the banks and bed of the waters. A train yard full of junk, now showing signs of life. Piles of coal and black desert also line the route.
Everyone in this valley passes, every day, many reminders of the unchecked exploitation of natural resources. These are so plainly evident that they have become unremarkable.
As always, I drove past the site of the Twin Shaft disaster, 58 miners entombed for eternity under hundreds of feet of rock. Their families now long since dead, there is no one to remember.
Now we have daily reports of trillions (with a capital "T") of dollars of natural gas to be drilled out of the mountains just to the north of our comfortable little post industrial wasteland. We have news of the creation of 200,000 jobs, and of massive investment by the same people who are filling the Gulf of Mexico with crude oil. These are the same types of people, by the way, who lorded it over our coal miner ancestors 100 years ago.
After so many decades below the poverty line, the people of our region welcome the chance to make some money. Their worries over water supply are set aside so they can get checks for what seem to be enormous sums of money. Who could ever possibly blame them?
Perhaps the spirits of the hundreds and thousands of miners hurt and killed in the mines. They came from the old countries far away to find better lives for their descendants. They wanted their children to be educated and free from oppression and hunger. By and large, they achieved that goal.
I suspect that the miners would want their descendants to be smarter, to look around and know, based on the lessons of the past and the present, that our country's endless need for fuel places the environment second to profit. I think the miners would want their great grandchildren to get paid for selling this fuel.
I also think the miners would know with whom they are dealing. The miners made progress by forming unions at the price of blacklisting by the mine owners and excommunication by the church. These energy executives, like the coal and rail barons 100 years ago, are unabashedly cashing in on the energy needs of the world. We should cash in on their need for our energy.
These companies are buying gas rights for a nickel and selling for a dime within six months.
Let's organize, unify and hold out. This time, let us get paid before they take what they are going to get in any event. With enough money, we can move or drink bottled water. If they want our land, make them buy it at a premium.
The historical odds are that the extraction of this fuel will wreck the environment and the water supply. When the fuel is exhausted, the region will relapse into that stagnation particular to decimated mining country. When that happens, the Endless Mountains will contain only endless abandoned drilling rigs, rusting equipment, towns with vacant storefronts, polluted streams and rivers. The locals will look at them every day, and to their grandchildren, it will all seem normal.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. What happens to those who remember?
A partner with KPWS Law, P.C., Eugene C. Kelley has spent years helping and working with people with legal and financial problems. For further reading and free advice, please visit http://getbackgroup.com/contact-us/, http://kpws-law.com, or call him at (570)-674-1855 or (570)-562-4531.
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