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What can one say? Coal mining has always been dangerous, dirty work, its technology pushed along only by the wish to extract more from the ground, its safety record still troubling after all these years.
We get half our electricity from the miners' labors, and despite all the issues of air pollution and climate change, that's not likely to change soon. Unlike oil, coal is plentiful in the United States; unlike natural gas, the mines are far from the paths of hurricanes.
Mostly, coal is out of sight, pulled from the earth in the most remote parts of rural America, sent by train to power plants that we never pass. We leave the work, in large part, to the rural poor of Appalachia. They're far from the major cities. We don't pay much attention to them unless we get wind of an accident. And then....
...and then? It so happens I wrote the words above four years ago, in a post to this blog on Jan. 4, 2006, after the Sago mine accident near Buckhannon, W. Va., about 150 miles by car from Monday's explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine near Whitesville. I take no credit for prescience.
The Associated Press has posted a list of fatal mine accidents in America; find it HERE. Six miners killed in a mine collapse in Utah in 2007...twelve killed at Sago in 2006...five killed in an explosion in Harlan County, Ky., in 2006...thirteen killed in explosions in Brookwood, Ala., in 2001.... The AP does note that America's "single deadliest mining disaster was in 1907, when 362 were killed in an explosion near Monongah, W.Va."
Already, there are stories by ABC News and others about the safety record of the Upper Big Branch mine, "including 57 infractions just last month for violations that included repeatedly failing to develop and follow a ventilation plan."
Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis released a statement this morning: “The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration will investigate this tragedy, and take action. Miners should never have to sacrifice their lives for their livelihood."
But that will not change the realities: that coal is affordable and abundant in America, that it is mined far from where most of us live, and that we don't pay much attention unless there is an accident. There has just been another.
Potter, Ned. “Death in the Mines.” Abc.com. Abc News, 6 April 2010. Web. 1 May 2010.
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How often is coal mining on the radio? How often is it displayed on news stations and plastered in magazines?Almost never. It takes a horrific accident like this to bring it to the foreground of our media and modern discourse. It takes the unnecessary slaughter of workers to make anyone care.
ReplyDeleteEven though Potter had the best of intentions when writing this article, he only wrote it because of the experience he had covering numerous mining tragedies. This allows me to assume that authors of modern discourse find it necessary to write about something that can capture an audience as opposed to something that is strictly important and informational. If Potter had written the article solely about how using less coal for electricity would help the environment, his piece probably wouldn't have generated as much interest. It's undeniable that the unsafe conditions of mines need to be brought into the spotlight, but the consequences of the use of coal deserve to be more than pieces of background information.
ReplyDeleteYes, coal mining is dangerous. So is being in the military. So is working in construction. So is football. So is walking down city streets. The fact is that even though coal mining is dangerous, it is still these people's jobs. There isn't anything else for them. So why not make other jobs for them? Well, what would they do? Work in the places with new energy? We don't have an efficient source of alternative energy yet. Once we do, then yes, that's a fantastic idea. But until then, this is all they have, and this is all we have. Talking about how horrible it is (and it is) isn't going to change anything.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to sound like a jerk! I just feel about certain things... I still love you both!
This article supports one of the claims I made while writing my project: the media chooses to portray exciting stories that will get attention. The reason the media doesn't comment regularly on coal mines is because coal mines are not deemed a very exciting topic. What happens when an accident happens at one and it's considered the worst mining disaster in history? Then it becomes exciting and serious enough to report. Exciting because the public craves to read about danger, but serious because real people died in this incident. It just goes to show that modern discourse (and the media) are centralized around exciting stories and information.
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