CNN, Anthony Bourdain, West Virginia, and Parts Unknown
Sunday Night I watched an Anthony Bourdain trip to Southern West Virginia. The discussion about West Virginia being Coal Country hasn't changed much since I went to graduate school there in 1975. Coal miners had good jobs back then and in some ways had the best of both worlds being able to live a rural lifestyle with an almost city paycheck.
While I was in graduate school if you could get a job "in the mines" it was a good thing but it was not even universally accepted then as a great thing. Environmentally there were concerns about "acid rain" from sulfur dioxide released into the air from burning coal or electricity or heat. Mountain top mining was less dangerous and more profitable than underground mining but had ruinous effects on watersheds along with being ugly.
And in the background is Don Blankenship who was a former coal mining executive who was convicted in charges related to violating mine safety rules related to the Upper Big Branch Mining Disaster which killed 29 miners. If it impacted coal mining negatively in his way of thinking regarding coal mining he was against it. Environmental rules, mine safety rules, the bureaucrats, legislators, and judges were enemies of the coal mining industry.
And so it goes in "Wild and Wonderful" West Virginia where even a little progress is slow walked.
While I was in graduate school if you could get a job "in the mines" it was a good thing but it was not even universally accepted then as a great thing. Environmentally there were concerns about "acid rain" from sulfur dioxide released into the air from burning coal or electricity or heat. Mountain top mining was less dangerous and more profitable than underground mining but had ruinous effects on watersheds along with being ugly.
And in the background is Don Blankenship who was a former coal mining executive who was convicted in charges related to violating mine safety rules related to the Upper Big Branch Mining Disaster which killed 29 miners. If it impacted coal mining negatively in his way of thinking regarding coal mining he was against it. Environmental rules, mine safety rules, the bureaucrats, legislators, and judges were enemies of the coal mining industry.
And so it goes in "Wild and Wonderful" West Virginia where even a little progress is slow walked.
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