Mountain Holler
State Supreme Court Approves Second Silo Behind Marsh Fork Elementary
June 12th, 2009
The State Supreme Court ruled in a 5 to 0 decision to allow Massey Energy build a second silo within 300 feet of Marsh Fork Elementary School. The associated Air Quality Permit will allow for an increase of 3.49 tons of particulate matter per year to be released into the air next to the school.The court case was complicated with hours or arguing about maps and markers, but the fact remains that kids will be breathing in that extra 7000 pounds of coal dust every year.
The solution is much easier to understand than the lawsuit: Build a new school in the community. Marsh Fork Elementary is the last school left in the Marsh Fork of the Coal River. The middle and high schools have been consolidated and moved up river taking leaving MFE as the last community space. We can't let that go.
What we can do is call Senator Byrd. HR 2187, the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act, or the more simply the Green School Act, which provides $6.4 Billion for new schools and green school renovations, recently passed through the House of Representatives and is now in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. If you've ever driven through West Virginia, you would surely notice that there are a lot of things named after Robert C. Byrd: the roads, the entire highway system, the largest moveable radio telescope in the world, etc. The point being that Robert C. Byrd can do nothing if not get federal money to come in to West Virginia for infrastructure projects and he should have no problem secures $5 million of that money for a new Marsh Fork Elementary.
So Give him a call at: (202) 224-3954
Or write him a letter at:
Robert C. Byrd
311 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Or email him at: Web Form: byrd.senate.gov/contacts/
Three years ago he promised to leave no stone unturned to try and find money for a new school. Let him know you want him to keep that promise.
As a side note this silo issue illustrates just how much the system doesn't work. The Surface Mine Control and Reclaimation Act of 1977, the law that most of the regulations around mountaintop removal come from, says that no mining operation is allowed within 300 feet of a school. The existing silo and the one in the court case are both within 300 feet of the school.
They got around the law because the land the silos are on were part of a mining operation before SMCRA was passed in 1977, though at the time there was nothing near the school and there wasn't until 2003 when the first silo was built.
The DEP, Surface Mine Board, circuit court and now the Supreme court all approved it. The verdict was given during another SMB hearing (which we lost), and you should have seen the smile on the DEP lawyers face when he found out that those kids would be exposed to an additional 7000 pounds of coal dust every year.