This state is a lesson in how to destroy an environment, one that was a beautiful habitat and is now becoming a wasteland.

Last edited Sat Mar 1, 2014, 07:15 AM - Edit history (1)

. . . from "Montani Semper Liberi" (Mountaineers are always free) to "Hillbillies to the highest bidder."

P.S.
As a West Virginia native, I not only can say something like that at my age (78) but, also, believe it to be true, sadly.

So much to lose. Families are losing their heritage,their homes. Everyone is losing the beauty of what once was the mountains with all it's creatures. In a state where fishing and hunting helped feed a family you have to wonder what they do now. Once clean mountain air now clogged with dust and chemicals so many of future generations will be sick in so many ways. All of this for what? A few more years of coal? The real cost is not in the coal but the cost of life and the environment and it's just not worth it.

There's money to be made off of it and if people die, "oh well they were expendible anyway"

Last edited Sat Mar 1, 2014, 07:03 AM - Edit history (1)

Notice that there's a miner and a farmer pictured on that flag, as if miners and farmers are (or were) of prime importance in West Virginia. But, are they in the least bit important?

In the county where I was born, thank God there are no mountaintop removal mines; but there are coal prep plants, slurry ponds and high-risk coal waste dams because, in my home country "back home", what's left of the Pittsburgh coal seam is still being mined underground. Actually, more and more underground coal is being mined using shield-supported longwall mining equipment which requires fewer and fewer miners. (Last I heard, it took 3 miners per shift to run a longwall face.)

When it comes to those who live on the surface above the mines, farmers went the way of dairies and subsistence farms that have disappeared "back home" . . . undermined and irresponsibly subsided by longwall mining, natural water sources and supplies are damaged and destroyed, meaning (among other things) you can't water cattle without water in the pasture.

So . . .

All over the State of West Virginia, the name of the game is long-term problems for the state and its people and short-term profits for out-of-state interests . . . and it's getting worse . . . especially now, with fracking added to the mix.

Betcha all of 'em get theirs . . . as if they don't already get theirs, yours, ours, and everybody else's.

people who were ran out of these areas were called savages. The link above is what savages do.

. . . what sociopaths do.

If you claim to be a believer, you are assaulting the very God you claim to love.

If you're a human being you see the destruction of our planet, our home.

If the people who vote in the businessmen are religious, do they feel their current reality is all they have to look forward to and have submitted to waiting for the world to come?

And do we who don't live there, understand that we are part of the problem, since the coal isn't taken for the use of WV, but the rest of the USA?

. . . especially those who live in cities and towns where they don't need to contend with the adverse effects of irresponsible mining practices (surface and underground) experienced by rural residents . . . and, sorry to say, most of them care more about that pittance of a coal severance tax that's added to their own city and town coffers than they care about what happens out in the boonies. Out of sight, out of mind.

Down by the green river where paradise lay?"
"Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

That's one of my favorite John Denver songs.