[Coach_Owens87]

ok, an average of 123 miners per county in Eastern Kentucky. Take those jobs away from them, and Eastern Kentucky has NOTHING to fall back on. Yes Im biased. Im all for mining. And yes, you are EXACTLY right, that Eastern Kentucky is one of the poorest regions in the entire country, so why bash one of the very few jobs where someone can make a decent living at? You can pull this "you dont have any facts, you arent nearly as knowledgable as me" shit all you want, but its this crazy world you all live in that allows you to believe that theres going to be ANYTHING at all here IF you people get your way. I dont use facts, I use common sense. No 123 per county ISNT a significant number, but you take half those away, and thats over 60 starving familes. But hey, your friggin trees will be safe. Ill bet you'll be tickled pink going to bed knowing that. Yeah, stick it to those "horrible coal industries. Those law breaking greedy bastards.............that feeds familes". OK, point of it all is this..You say we need to prepare for the future. How? You say there are alternative energy sources, and that we'll never run out of energy, which is true. NOW, tell me, until those sources are prevalent in this area, what should they do without mining? How will they get the money to use those alternative energy sources around this area? And what alternative energy sources would work not only around here, but for the entire country? Because coal makes up 52% of our nations power. Of which Im sure your well aware. You say theres no such thing as clean coal, that its an oxymoron. You say you love those that stand up to the coal operators. Yet you even admit that coal is our best option. What the hell do you want them to do? You want them to mine cleaner? Ill bet you want 200mph sports cars to get 60 miles per gallon to dont you? Yeah, we all oppose greedy power companies, who doesnt? You say that I may not realize it but coal is not our savior, but right now, IT IS. Until our "smarter generation" comes up with ways that our region can make a decent living, IT IS the only hope for many families to make ends meet. And explain to me how you'd mine coal cleaner? You say we are a smarter generation, which I still believe is crap, by the way. Our generation is a wasteful generation. Our generation is lazy and selfish. And I do love this area, but like I said, when Im getting paid $58,000 a year to plant trees, stock streams, and bitch about coal companies, Ill stop mining. Until then, mining IS my savior. As its been for our family for over 100 years. And Im not angry. Im realistic.

Tidehoss, you still didn't prove anything beyond the point that you are ANGRY and baised. All you are thinking of is the NOW, and yourself. I totally agree with a lot of what you said. Yes this generation is greedy, wasteful, and lazy, which is big reason for why we are in such an energy mess at the moment. To answer your idiotic question " would I want a sports car that went 200 mph and and got 60 MPG", I sure as hell would, as long as it ran on "green" fuel. lol, youre actually funny, you spent so much of your time to write that long reply, and you told me absoultely nothing. You just keep repeating yourself. All you MTR supporters keep saying the same thing, you all use the same old worn out slogans.
All you have said this whole time is "take coal away and we have nothing". Where did I ever say to take coal away, all I want is to stop the destruction of Appalachia until a better source of energy can be ready for mass consumption. You're whole argument lies on the theory that without coal we have nothing, I want to know why people think that? Are we so dumb and dependent, that we cant find nothing else to do besides mine? Or do people believe that coal is our "savior" because we were feared into thinking that? People of this region are repeatedly told we have nothing without coal. Thats totally absurd. We have the ability to build an economy without coal, tourism could be a start, but no one wants to see flat mountains.

You're whole argument is actually absurd, yes I know that your job feeds your family, so what, every person that has a job relies on that to feed their family.
I'm sure you are a hard working man, just like the dozens of family members I have that work in the mines. But things are different now, it takes a handful of men to do the job that hundreds used to do. Coal is not our savior right now, were one of the poorest regions in the country, our unemployment rate has been the same for the last 30 years, and the future doesn't look any brighter, how is that a savior?


Now to the points you made, the big reason other energy sources aren't being used, or being further researched in this area is because of the greedy oil and coal companies. Too much money is being made to get away from mining. It's that simple. Now you agree that Appalachia is one of the poorest regions in the country, and you know exactly why that is, It's mining. There aren't any other job opportunites here because we don't have the trained workers to do them, most people who get an education move away from here to get jobs, including me. The average age of a coal miner is 55, which shows that young people arent working in the mines, and since you claim mining is our "savior" what happens when all those workers retire, there wont be anyone to work in the mines. We need to get better jobs in this area, which wont happen until MTR practices are controlled.

I'm currently in pre-med, I would love to come back to this area and work, and with the way mining is going I would never be out of work, our streams and air are polluted, so I would have a constant stream of sick patients. Just to let you know 6 counties in eastern Ky rank in the top ten nationally in lung cancer, children here are 50% more likely to get asthma, and mothers are more likely to have birth defects, and why is all of this happening, it's because these "great" coal companies are polluting Appalachia. I ask a lot of people to do this, and I would guess that very few do, but I will ask again, go look at google earth and view the destruction.

The point im trying to make is that MTR needs to be controlled and stopped, yes as of right now we need the coal, but there has got to be a better way, MTR takes away jobs, and destroys our environment, and is rapidly destroying our culture. You admitted that you dont use facts, and that you think from the "gut, which shows that you don't know what you're talking about, all you're doing is trying to protect your job, which I completely understand. I know that a lot of people here wont listen to me, a lot of people will write me off as some crazy "tree hugger", which is fine with me. There is a group that sides with me, and it's a rapidly growing group of people just like you, people who want better for this region. this earth is god given, and all im trying to do is protect it and it's inhabitants.

Now I didn't put a lot of facts into this argument, but I do know what I'm talking about, anytime you want to debate over the practice of MTR just ask. The bad totally outweighs the good in the case of MTR, I can give you thousands of incidents, and stats on just how MTR is destroying this region. MTR is accountably for floods, mudslides, contaminated water, and many other things. The property value of a home near a mine site drops on average by 90%, most people here have very little, and their home is their only possession, imagine how they feel when the lose all the have. Here is one you can probably understand, and it should hit home, Mining jobs have decreased by over 50% since 1970, thats when MTR really started. Is that the great job maker coal claims to be?