[Beef]

First, I just want one thing cleared up. Why exactly are you against MTR? I am not a big ecological fanatic so this could be the biggest problem we have in seeing the same thing.

But I did watch the 2 videos that are on ilovemountains.org and here are some things that I discovered.

1. "Our way of life is being destroyed" What exactly is being destroyed? Is it the looks of the mountains? Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that if you really want to see your lives destroyed, the just imagine what it would be like if the coal industry decided today to pack up and leave (after reclaiming the land). Talk about the loss of jobs and money into the economy. Now that would be destroying jobs. I know I have said this before but coal is what runs this region. Without it there would be NO money in the economy. There is nothing else here. Sure I am looking at it from the business side of things, but guess what, business is what makes the world work.

2. Just a little note on the videos. They never showed what reclaimed land looked like. All they showed was active mines. Of course the land is going to look bad. What do you expect?

3. The woman talking about her home being flooded. I'm sure she never got flooded before the mining started. What a joke that was.

4. Then the video gets into talking about how coal provides so much energy and everyone in the US has used at least some coal energy but they could stop MTR and use alternate sources of energy. Explain to me exactly what other forms of energy could be used in this situation. Wind, solar, nuclear, water? Yes, they are all good sources but it doesn't seem to be that any of them are up to the task as of now to come in and take over what coal provides. The only exception to this is water but then you have the environmentalists complaining when a dam blocks a river. Wind and Solar are both still in developing and testing stages and no one wants to deal with the nuclear waste so that is why these plants are not being built. Right now coal is the best source of energy and the cheapest energy that we have. Price doesn't matter? Yea, go ask someone to increase their power bill by 30% and see how happy they get. Gas has finally reached the world average and people are outraged. Doubt anyone wants to pay any more for energy.

5. Shows the sludge ponds. But you are going to have these ponds no matter which form of mining you choose. So to use this in an argument you are totally ANIT-Coal not just anti-MTR.

6. This is from the guy at the "Funeral for Mountains" -- "West Virginia is Mountains. West Virginia is not coal!" Now tell me exactly what WV would be without coal. As mentioned in #1. NOTHING! Talk about a poor and pitiful place to live with no work.

7. And just like Old School I had problems with Google-Earth while try to look at problems. And remind you, I was using the Google Earth provided on ilovemountains.org. I could not zoom in very close nor could I tell if these shots were from active mines or not.

Reclamation is a Long process. You can't expect to see a forest with 50 foot trees the day after a coal company closes up shop. It will take time to get back to where it was but time is what the environment has. Time is not what these economies have without the Coal Industry.