Letters praising the coal industry are becoming more bizarre.
One writer was "saddened" that people fail to appreciate the coal industry. That's insulting to someone having lost a family member to black lung or having a loved one crushed and buried alive in a roof fall. Who in his or her right mind would appreciate an industry that's responsible for so many deaths?
That same writer referred to those opposing mountaintop removal as ignorant people. He said that MTR is just a temporary disturbance. Before calling people ignorant, he should have read the federal environmental impact statement on MTR. Perhaps he did read it and now claims to know more than the experts who wrote it. Maybe he should read Webster's definition of ignorance.
Another writer's crystal ball envisioned a West Virginia without mining. It would be a forested mountain wilderness with scattered farms and people living off the land. He implied that it would be a terrible place to live, but somehow that vision is much more appealing to me than underground coal waste injections that poison people's wells and communities blanketed in rock blast and coal dust.
Finally, another went off the deep end and thanked the Lord for the coal industry. He said God put coal here for us to prosper. I've read the Bible pretty much, but I haven't read that.
Many Bible verses do address the consequences to those who destroy God's creation. I doubt God wants us to blast away his mountains. He gave us wind, the sun and other clean, renewable energy resources to use. Yet, incredibly, some still choose to worship the most destructive industry in the history of mankind.
Mind-boggling when I think about it, leaving me to conclude that coal is not the problem. The problem is we're nuts.
Bo Webb
Naoma, W.Va.
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