Where did all the coal come from in the Appalachians? And how has it shaped the history and economy of our region?
-Bubba Posner, Arlington, Va.

Coal is the most valuable mineral resource in the Southern Appalachians. Formed in massive quantities by ancient geologic processes, this combustible organic rock has been mined for centuries in the mountains and hollows of Appalachia. The forces that formed our mountains also brought coal within our reach, and its extraction and removal has, in turn, shaped the economy and topography of the land since the first miner’s pick struck into a seam. For better or worse, coal is still king in the coalfield communities of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. And like most unelected monarchs, he alternates between showers of munificence and blind destructive rage. Appalachian coal was created through a combination of heat, pressure, and vast spans of time. Most of the coal in our area was formed during the Triassic and Carboniferous periods, as far back as 360 million years ago. Decaying plant matter deposited in ancient swampy lowlands was slowly compressed and subjected to the earth’s heat until its chemical composition changed-a process called coalification.

These masses of leaves, stems, twigs, and trunks started out as peat, then were buried under successive layers of sediment and water. Heat and pressure combined to form varying grades of coal, from lignite (the softest) to anthracite (the hardest). Three to 10 feet of compacted vegetative material is required to form one foot of coal. Southwest Virginia is part of the larger Appalachian coal basin, which incorporates large portions of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. The Southwest Virginia coalfields occupy an area of about 1,500 square miles. By contrast, nearly the entire state of West Virginia lies within the Appalachian coal basin, making it the second largest coal-producer in the country after Wyoming.

Coal was first mined in Virginia in 1748, but it wasn’t until the railroads made removal and transportation of coal economically feasible, that coal production really took off. After the Civil War, northern industrialists spurred railroad expansion into the rich West Virginia and southwest Virginia coalfields. Practically overnight, the economy of this mountainous region changed from subsistence farming to coal extraction. Population increased and company towns sprang up around the deep-shaft mines.

After the turn of the century, mineworkers unionized to counter rapacious coal barons and their hired goons. A boom-bust economic cycle, tied to international coal prices, became (and remains) the norm for this economically depressed but mineral-rich region.

King coal brought wealth to some, a lifetime of labor to many, and strife and death to more than a few. Deep shaft mining is inherently dangerous work and mine disasters were part of the deal from the beginning. One of the deadliest mine disasters in the United States occurred at the Fraterville coal mine in east Tennessee. On May 19, 1902, approximately 200 men were killed after an oil lamp on a miner’s helmet ignited a pocket of methane. Not everyone died instantly. Many escaped the blast only to expire from lack of oxygen. Some wrote letters to loved ones, including this missive from a father to his sons: “My boys, never work in the coal mines.”

Another incident, the Battle of Matewan, in the West Virginia coalfields, erupted after thugs hired by mine operators began evicting families of unionizing mineworkers at gunpoint. Angry miners armed themselves and gathered in Matewan to confront the company goons. As the crowd swelled, someone fired a shot and a brief but fierce battle ensued. Ten people died in the confusion and gunfire.

While undoubtedly bringing a measure of economic prosperity to an otherwise poor part of the world, king coal’s turbulent reign has brought nothing but stress and pollution to the region’s environment. Once closed, deep shaft mines fill with water which can be highly acidic or contaminated with leftover minerals such as manganese and selenium. The water flows into rivers or seeps into groundwater.

With advances in surface mining technology, it has become more economically viable to strip the coal off the surface rather than dig deep into the earth. In the 1970s, so-called strip mining increased in response to rising oil prices and the availability of high-grade coal just beneath the surface. Earth-moving machines literally scrape the “overburden” of dirt and rock from the mountainsides and dump the fill into the nearest valley or hollow, creating huge slurry impoundments holding water mixed with dirt, rock, and noxious byproducts such as mercury, lead, and arsenic. Sometimes these impoundments fail and the subsequent flow into waterways results in massive fish kills and deposition of polluted sediment.

In recent years, a process called mountaintop removal has invigorated the coal industry and infuriated environmentalists and many local people. A bit like strip mining on steroids, mountaintop removal does just what the name suggests-whole hilltops are blasted and scraped away to get at the coal underneath. Ironically, tough air pollution rules make the low-sulfur, cleaner-burning coal that lies just below the surface more desirable, and profitable, to extract. The main problem with mountaintop removal comes with finding somewhere to put the tons of leftover dirt and debris. Thanks in part to ambiguities in the Clean Water Act, mining companies have resorted to pushing it into nearby valleys, creating “valley fills,” that obliterate waterways.

The last five years have seen increasingly bitter legal wrangling as environmental groups battle the coal industry to stop, or at least mitigate, this destructive practice. Last year, a federal report stated that already some 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams have been buried and over 300,000 acres of forests have been consumed by mountaintop removal. Since 2002, the Bush Administration has taken decisive steps to “streamline” the regulatory process to spur further mountaintop removal. The effects are already evident: Last year, West Virginia approved more than 20,000 acres for future mining, a threefold increase from the previous year.

Combine a nationwide hunger for cheap electricity, a constant need to stoke the economic engine, and (to be charitable) the current administration’s laissez-faire atmosphere toward environmental regulation, and it’s clear that coal will remain king for sometime to come. It’s up to us to decide when the reign is over.