The Charleston Gazette, August 23, 1998

It Is Insane, It Is Madness

Governor Cecil Underwood is either a liar or he has advisers who lie to him. He was quoted in a Gazette article on the report of the Governor’s Task Force on Mountaintop Removal as saying, “…when asked to produce usable information, the environmental people didn’t come forward…didn’t offer proposals. They didn’t attend hearings.”

At the next-to-last hearing of the task force, the number of “environmental people” who spoke outnumbered the coal industry speakers.

Underwood appointed a task force that had three subcommittees. There was only one “environmental people” representative on the entire task force. Therefore, when the three subcommittees had separate meetings and hearings, there was no one representing the “environmental people” on two-thirds of the subcommittees.

This task force was an obvious cruel joke. Several of its members have dedicated their lives to taking the tops off the mountains of West Virginia. Over one-third of the task force has direct ties to the coal industry. The three elected politicians on the task force have received thousands of dollars from the coal industry in campaign contributions.

Ex-officio task force member Michael Miano, the current head of the so-called Division of Environmental Protection, and a longtime employee of the coal industry, replied to one of the “environmental people.” He said, “We have been doing mountaintop removal for 40 years and there has been no problem.”

Wade Gilley, the chairman of the task force, classified many of us “environmental people” as “professional testifiers” in a Gazette article after the very first task force hearing.

As I said in my last testimony to the task force, “Mountaintop removal strip mining is the most insane idea that has ever been tried in West Virginia.” Mountaintop removal strip mining is justified with sentiment expressed with the infamous “we had to destroy the village to save it” statement from the Vietnam War. We have to destroy the mountains for the economy. We have to destroy West Virginia to save it. That is insane.

It is not mountaintop removal; it is mountain removal. They aren’t just taking the tops off the mountains; they are digging down like a dentist doing a root canal and removing the entire mountain.

Southern West Virginia from the air looks like it has been carpet-bombed. They claim they are making it better. The reclaimed ground is as hard as concrete when they get through “reclaiming” their moonscapes. Madness.

The coal industry people tried to change the name of “strip mining” to “surface mining” because “strip mining” sounded as ugly as it is. Now they are trying to change the name of mountaintop removal to mountaintop mining. Madness

Mountaintop removal strip mining is the worst thing that has ever happened to West Virginia. These coal industry people who are removing our mountains call us “environmental people” extremists. Removing mountains is far more extreme than wanting to leave them alone. It is insane. It is madness.

Eddie Gillenwater

There have been a few saints in my life, people who have influenced me deeply. Being saints didn’t mean they were perfect. Being saints meant they understood human nature and listened to you when you talked and shared their ideas and feelings with you.

My football coach, Sammy LeRose, is one of the saints of my life. He was a wonder of a coach. He never raised his voice, never cussed and never showed disgust for his players. He was kind. My great uncle Kin Barker was another. Kin was a logger on Bull Creek before logging tore up the earth much like a strip-mine.

Grandma Ethyl Atkins Barker is another of the saints who have smiled into my life. Kin and Grandma have died, but I remember them every day. Now another saint has died but not passed away, for I will keep him fresh in people’s memories.

Eddie Gillenwater died the other day doing one of the things he liked best. He died in the woods hunting rabbits. Eddie went fast and he gave up the spirit out where the ginseng grows and where his dogs ran.

Eddie was amazing. He built my kitchen cabinets when he was seventy years old. He left a beautiful table, a rocking chair and two stools in my house. I write this on the table he built. Eddie was at Pearl Harbor. He looked up and saw planes shooting at him. I expected a heroic tale about Pearl Harbor. Eddie told me that he ran down a hill to escape the bullets and tried to get inside a drainage culvert. But he could only get his head in-- the rest of him didn’t fit. So there he was with his rear end as a target for the Japanese air force. Eddie would rather tell a funny story than make himself look good.

He was a paratrooper and told me that he made one combat jump. I think his jump was in New Guinea. Once again I expected to hear about the brave soldier in hand-to-hand combat. Not so, Eddie landed in the courtyard of an unarmed Japanese hospital. He said that within twenty minutes he was on the third floor balcony flirting with the Japanese nurses.

Eddie read about every major American novel and many minor ones. He was a friend, an intellectual, a woodworker and a musician. He raised Beagles, dug ‘sang and smoked a pipe. As a young man he could shoot a dime out of the air with a 22 rifle.

Eddie was most of all a philosopher and he left me with my favorite quote about the stress of modern life. Eddie said, “Prosperity isn’t worth the price you have to pay.”

I loved Eddie Gillenwater and if it weren’t for my grandma Barker and great uncle Kin and Sammy Lerose I’d say he was in a class by himself.