Collegiate Times

A coal-loading silo is visible behind Marsh Fork Elementary, as well as an earthen dam holding back 2.8 billion gallons of coal sludge.

Last weekend a group of Virginia Tech students and Blacksburg community members took a trip to the mountains of West Virginia. They were not there to camp or hike, but to hear from one man about the abuse he endured after refusing to sell his land to coal corporations.

Larry Gibson, a prominent anti-mountaintop removal activist and local landowner, spoke about his experiences. His family has lived on or near Kayford Mountain since the late 1700s. Since 1986 Gibson and his family have been witnesses to what he refers to as “the slow-motion destruction of Kayford Mountain.”

The event was the conclusion to the Bright Ideas weekend hosted by the Tech SGA Sustainability Committee, and it gave students a firsthand look at the process of mining coal and its effects on the environment and community.

According to Gibson, 18 years after the “mountaintop removal” project began on his property — once one of the lowest on the mountain — became the highest point in the region.

Gibson has turned the 50 acres he occupies atop Kayford into a park where groups, such as the one from Tech, can come and learn about mountaintop mining.

Mountaintop mining has become a widespread method of mining coal in central Appalachia, bringing in 131 million tons, or about 11 percent of the total U.S. coal production, in 2008. For many sites, mountaintop mining is the most efficient method either because of geology or topography and is used often because it is the method necessary to recover the resource.

Gibson takes every opportunity to educate people on mountaintop mining and shares his insight on how mountain top mining has affected the community.

“Do you know how many people we have lost since 1993?” Gibson asks. “Over 500 people — that’s a small town. They keep making reference to this as cheap energy, cheap energy. How cheap is that when you ask somebody who’s lost something?”

Gibson also discusses the environmental impacts of mountaintop mining, discussing how mountaintop mining has destroyed more than 1,500 minor streams.

The Environmental Protection Agency released new “comprehensive guidelines” to protect communities in Appalachia from harmful effects of mountaintop mining. The new measures include “improved guidance and clarity” for its regional offices that govern permitting for mountaintop mining, as well as the publication of scientific studies and an online permit database.

The EPA notes that, based on more than 1,200 stream segments impacted by mountaintop mining and valley fills, streams are sometimes covered up, forests may become fragmented and that “there may be social, economic and heritage issues” associated with mountaintop mining.

According to Gibson, his views and his refusal to sell his land often make him and others on his property the subject of violence and harassment, ranging from drive-by shootings to death threats. But for Gibson, the mountain is something worth fighting for.

“We have enough coal here (that) when they price this land it’s (worth) $650 million,” he said. “It’s no wonder they come at me.”

A version of this article appeared in the Apr 2 issue of the Collegiate Times.