Mountaineers Are Always Free:? An Examination of the Effects of Mountaintop Removal in West Virginia

Mountaineers Are Always Free?: An Examination of the Effects of Mountaintop Removal inWest VirginiaAuthor(s): Joyce BarrySource: Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 1/2, Earthwork: Women and Environments(Spring - Summer, 2001), pp. 116-130Published by: The Feminist Press at the City University of New YorkStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40004612 .

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Mountaineers Are Always Free? An Examination of the Effects of Mountaintop Removal in West Virginia

Joyce Barry

On 1 September 1999, a group of West Virginia residents participated in a march to commemorate the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, where coal miners trying to unionize the industry armed themselves against coal officials vehemently opposed to such labor activities. It was a battle in which federal troops were dispatched to quell what is considered to be the largest civil insurrection in the United States since the Civil War. During the commemoration, marchers were pelted with eggs by miners and their families, who have indicted many of the commemo- rators for their opposition to mountaintop removal (MTR), because, in their minds, such opposition has led to the loss of jobs for many members of the United Mine Workers Association. Furthermore, many in the UMWA are angered by environmental opposition to the practice of MTR, and during the march chanted, "This is coal country," and "Lizard-lovers go home" (Ward, "Miners,' Marchers' Ideals Collide," 2). This clash between members of the UMWA and other West Virginia citizens illustrates the tangled alliances and heated emo- tions of many in the state over the relatively new form of mining called mountaintop removal, and its impact on West Virginia's political, social, economic, and environmental climate. It can be argued that all citizens in the state have some familiarity with this new form of mining, and more important, some opinion of its adverse or perhaps ben- eficial aspects. It has divided state citizens, governmental agencies, labor organizations, environmental groups, and the state legislature in such a polarizing way that there is virtually no middle ground of opinion regarding mountaintop removal.

This essay is grounded by the concept of "historical-geographical materialism," which David Harvey developed injustice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference. He suggests that geographical and environmental differences are constituted by and also constitutive of "socio- ecological and political-economic processes" (6). Harvey claims that differences are the result of "unrelenting capital accumulation and the

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Women *s Studies Quarterly 2001: 1 & 2 117

extraordinary asymmetries of money and political powers that are embedded in that process," providing a materialist base by which to scrutinize varying ecological and geographical conditions (401). Using the theoretical lens of environmental justice, this essay seeks to examine the local/global underpinnings of the controversial practice of mountain top removal in West Virginia from the viewpoint of poor, rural women in the state. The environmental justice approach to environmental destruction is the best framework through which to explore ecological problems because such a framework exposes class, race, and gender divisions, which precipitate and sustain environmental degradation. In searching for solutions to problems plaguing West Virginia, such as the political, social, economic, and environmental costs of MTR, this work will ultimately argue that any attempts to address these issues must include considerations of poor women. These considerations are crucial, for it is poor, rural women who not only bear the costs of uneven economic, political, and social development throughout the world, but who also form local collectives to fight such injustices in their communities.

West Virginia, one of the most impoverished states in the country, is situated in central Appalachia, a region considered "in, but not of the rest of America (Shapiro, Appalachia on Our Minds: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in American Consciousness, 1920-1970, 10). Appalachia has, from time to time, received national attention from political elites who attempt to solve problems plaguing this area of the country. However, this attention typically frames Appalachian conditions and people as somehow apart from the social and political mainstream of the United States, an approach that suggests problems in the area are unique to the region or disconnected from national or international concerns. According to Steve Fisher, before Appalachian problems can receive serious attention, we must understand how this region connects to other areas of the country, and to the world. In "Natural Economic Renewal Programs and Their Implications for Appalachia and the South," Fisher suggests:

The idea that Appalachia and the South are different from, at odds with, or exploited by the rest of the country obscures important internal struggles with both regions as well as many similarities between them and the rest of the capitalist world. The problems of Appalachia and the South may be more severe than in some other sections of the country, but they do not originate from fundamentally different causes. Nor are they fundamentally different from those of rural people throughout the world. Appalachia and the



118 Women 's Studies Quarterly 2001: 1 & 2

South are part of the mainstream world's economy. Responses to the economic crises in Appalachia and the South must begin with the realization that the root causes are national in scope. (263-64)

West Virginia, like most of central Appalachia, is a geographically isolated, economically depressed area of the country that is, paradoxi- cally, rich in such natural resources as coal, timber, and natural gas - resources that have long been extracted by outside corporate interests with no commitment to development in the state. West Virginia is primarily a single-industry state, with many residents, particularly in the southern "coal fields," relying most heavily on the coal industry for employment. In The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism, Revolution, and the Arms Race, Michael Parenti, like many, has called the area an "internal colony" within the United States, for it "manifests the symptoms of third world colonization, including chronic underem- ployment, hunger, inadequate income, low levels of education, infe- rior or non-existent human services, absentee ownership, and extraction of profits from the indigenous community" (81). To examine conditions in West Virginia, it is important to provide a historical context for current problems plaguing the area, and to better understand this new form of mining and the problems it is creating for the citizens and the environment.

Current economic crises in Appalachia are connected to the general economic shifts of globalization, for people in rural areas are directly connected to the global economy primarily because of the historical demand for rural resources. These resources have disproportionately benefited urban centers, although industries operating in rural areas, such as Appalachia, have provided jobs to the area's populations. West Virginia, and much of the central Appalachian region, has historically been used as an industrial outback in the national and international arena, but with globalization, socioeconomic conditions have become even more dire for this region of the country. In "Devel- opment, Democracy, and Dignity," John Gaventa, Barbara Ellen Smith, and Alex Willingham have noted that as "plants close and relocate overseas, as the economic gap grows between rural and urban areas, Appalachia and the South are faced with greater poverty than ever before, and with new dimensions of economic injustice for workers, farmers, women, people of color, and rural communities" (280). In such a climate, particularly with the ways in which resources are extracted from the state for corporate benefit and social systems are arranged to further this corporate quest, West Virginia and much of Appalachia can be considered a "Third World" region within First



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World America. For West Virginians, it is the coal industry, or "king coal," that has systematically arranged the state's resources for its benefit, while leaving state citizens politically and economically power- less - a situation that has worsened with recent changes in the ways in which coal is extracted. Economic insecurity is particularly devastating to rural women, many of whom head families living in poverty. It is these women who have the primary responsibility of maintaining the domestic sphere in incredibly trying circumstances. Ultimately, women, with their productive or social reproductive work, suffer the harshest effects of all social ills, whether those ills are poverty, unem- ployment, or environmental destruction. In her book Women and the World Economic Crises, Jeanne Vickers claims that women have a unique position in capitalism primarily through their roles as producers and caregivers or what is typically considered reproductive functions in capitalist economies. She writes:

They care for children, for old people, the sick, the handicapped . . . they service the household with food, cleanliness, clothing, and in many cases water and fuel. As long as these jobs are done by women, they are not assigned any economic value and their expansion is therefore taken for granted in times of economic adjustment. When food prices rise and wages fall, a woman must spend time finding ways to satisfy her family's hunger, traveling further to cheaper shops or markets, preparing cheaper food and often eating less in order to feed her husband and children. (15)

Because of the economic and social disadvantage of women in most societies, and the burden of unpaid or reproductive work, it is women who are the most vulnerable to economic insecurity and poverty.

As is the case in much of central Appalachia, most women in West Virginia occupy rural areas and head families living in poverty. In

"Organizing Women for Local Economic Development," Chris Weiss notes that West Virginia women have one of the lowest labor partici- pation rates in the country. Weiss claims that only 36 percent of West Virginia women work in the formal economy, and white women in this state earn forty-three cents for every male dollar, while black women earn only forty cents. In addition, almost half of West Virginia women live alone, being single, separated, or divorced. The primary causes of poverty for West Virginia women, like those of many impoverished women in this country, is occupational segregation, or the types of jobs women are encouraged or forced to assume in the economy. Also, the burdens of children and being primary caretakers of the home, as well as cuts in social welfare programs over the past twenty years, have exac-




erbated problems faced by poor women in this country. Weiss argues that conditions for West Virginia women can only change if rural women are afforded formal jobs with living wages, gain increased access to credit, have more control over land and natural resources, become able to form partnerships between government and members of their communities, and steer women's organizations into raising public policy concerns and educating the public on economic justice issues for women (68) . Weiss claims that one cannot fully understand, let alone alleviate, poverty unless the position of women is taken into account, for a healthy economy cannot be created or maintained unless the unused resources of half its population are considered. She notes, for example, that some acts to improve economies in rural areas like West Virginia, such as attracting new industries, have actually hin- dered women's situations because these industries typically rely solely on male labor. Therefore, it is imperative to place social conditions within the context of global restructuring, which has caused situations such as a lack of decent jobs for women, cuts in social funding, and even women's increased politicization in these areas.

Carolyn Sachs (Gendered Fields: Rural Women, Agriculture, and Enviroment) notes that restructuring of the global economy brings changes to rural women's lives in much of the world. She claims that "increased reliance on women workers in the formal and informal economy provides the backbone of global restructuring in both rural and urban areas . . . relations with the global economy differ by gender, with rural women incorporated into the global economy on the least favorable terms, with the highest likelihood of experiencing poverty" (141). Sachs also suggests that women's activism in rural areas is geared toward forming connections between families and communities, and rural women do not participate "simply to improve their individual situations . . . although they sometimes are empowering to individual women, these activities serve more broadly to improve conditions of life" (27). Perhaps activist groups in West Virginia could look toward development strategies in other parts of the world as a model for exacting change for state citizens. However, the situation of women, which is typically overshadowed or lumped together with men, should be central to such an examination. As Gina Sen and Caren Grown have stated, "If the goals of development include improved standards of living, removal of poverty, access to dignified employment, and the reduction in societal inequality, then it is quite natural to start with women. They constitute the majority of the poor, the underemployed, and the economically and socially disadvantaged in most societies" (Development, Crises, and Alternative Visions, 23). Therefore, when devel-



Women 's Studies Quarterly 2001: 1 &> 2 121

oping strategies to improve socioeconomic standards in West Virginia, considerations must be given to half of its idle labor pool - West Virginia women, one of the most underemployed sectors of U.S. society.

Recently, many citizens in West Virginia have been debating the con- sequences of coal industry changes that have ushered in the highly mechanized form of mining called mountaintop removal. MTR is a massive, technologically advanced form of coal extraction that is now becoming the most prevalent form of coal mining in the state. In this process, mountaintops are razed to unearth the valuable coal seams below. Currently, MTR operations account for one-third of the coal mined in West Virginia. The average single-mining operation is approximately 450 acres, or as one state journalist has framed it, roughly the size of 360 football fields. Through mountaintop removal, coal production has reached record levels in West Virginia, with an estimated 200 million tons of coal being extracted by the end of the decade. MTR received legal sanction with the Surface Mine and Reclamation Act of 1977, which permitted strip mining operations if the mined land was returned as close as possible to its original con- tours upon completion of the operation. This act also requires coal operators to contribute to social and economic development in these areas. The practice was precipitated by the Clean Air Act, which has demanded the use of low-sulfur coal for energy purposes. Because the Surface Mine and Reclamation Act did not specify requirements or penalties regarding the removal of mountaintops, operators of this new form of strip mining have worked within a legal loophole in the act by leveling the tops of mountains in order to extract coal, conve- niently circumventing legal obligations to return the land back to its original shape, and to promote development in mined areas (Ward, "Strip Mining Battle Resurfaces in the State," 3)

Although extremely lucrative for coal operators, mountaintop removal is socially, economically, and environmentally devastating for most people who live in the "mountain state." The introduction of MTR has decreased the need for employees because it requires fewer miners to produce more coal. According to Charleston Gazette journalist Ken Ward, in 1950 there were about 120,000 miners in West Virginia, and by the end of the 1990s about 19,000 mining jobs remained ("Strip Mining Battle Resurfaces in the State," 4). Much of the criticism regarding MTR and employment in West Virginia focuses solely on male labor that is lost through this mechanized form of mining. The male struggle to find meaningful employment in the highly patriarchal occupation of coal mining places intense burdens on families with limited resources, but the lack of employment opportunities




is especially difficult for women in these communities who must nego- tiate economic changes in order to care for their families. In addition to the loss of jobs, the practice is dislocating small communities near MTR operations by providing financial incentives for those residents to relocate, or by disrupting daily life with the sounds of large blasts, heavy pollution, and the dangers of rocks falling on or near their homes - so disrupting it forces residents to move to other areas. In a New York Times article, Michael Jan ofsky claims:

Dynamite explosions that cause flying rocks as well as cracks in walls and ceilings from the blast site are a constant problem for people living nearby. They have caused many residents to accept buyoffs from the coal companies, who offer $100,000 and more for some homes. While the price may seem generous, many residents say it barely com- pensates for the cost of moving to new communities, finding new jobs and buying other homes. But the difficult choice of enduring months of noise, dust and rocks or abandoning towns where relatives have lived for generations is beyond reasonable for many residents of southern West Virginia. ("As Hills Fill Hollows, Some West Virgina Residents Are Fighting King Coal," 1)

In this same article, one resident, Patricia Bragg, from a small town located near a mountain top removal site, was quoted as saying, "We know that the quality of life we hold so dear is weighed against progress of the country, but we're paying for that progress. People raise millions to save whales and walruses and birds, but the state does- n't lift a hand to save the most precious thing in the world, a person's way of life." In early 1998, residents across the southern West Virginia coalfields (a large majority of them mothers concerned about their homes and their families' welfare) began meeting in public spaces, such as local schools, to air grievances about the effects of mountaintop removal on their small, isolated communities and to question why state regulators continued to issue more and more mining permits when quality of life is so thoroughly jeopardized in these MTR areas.

In addition to adverse environmental effects of MTR on communities living near the operations, the physical geography of West Virginia, whose mountains are literally being obliterated, is also being altered by the stripping of land, and the dumping of refuse from MTR sites (a process called valley fill) into nearby valleys and streams. U.S. News and World Report journalist Penny Loeb claims that the costs of this practice are indisputable, with topographic and landscaping changes leaving regions more vulnerable to floods. Loeb says a recent survey by the Department of Natural Resources found that 70 percent of the state's



Women 's Studies Quarterly 2001: 1 & 2 123

streams and rivers are polluted, and one federal mining expert says that virtually every stream at an MTR site becomes contaminated with sediment from the mine, with an incalculable impact on wildlife in these areas ("Shear Madness" 2). Although a lawsuit, filed by the environmental group the Highlands Conservancy and a few state residents against the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection for illegally issuing MTR permits, has stalled some mining operations in the state, large-scale mountain top removal continues as an appeal is pending on the legal actions taken to force responsible mining in the state. The disastrous effects of MTR not only alter the physical geography of southern West Virginia, but also place the people who inhabit these areas in direct jeopardy, as traditional mountain culture and ancestry are being razed along with the mountains. Indeed, propo- nents of mountaintop removal, primarily coal operators, state politi- cians, and the United Mine Workers Union, have minimized the environmental and social impacts of MTR, labeling those who oppose the practice as "environmental radicals" whose agitation has resulted in the loss of jobs for many dependent upon the coal industry for employment. Although there has been protest by environmental groups, most concerned citizens, many of them women, are reluctant to call themselves environmentalists, claiming they are just concerned for their families and their way of life.

The debates surrounding mountaintop removal can best be under- stood by situating the practice within broader environmental debates. Ultimately, the approach of environmental justice, which doesn't focus solely on the natural environment but focuses on the social, economic, and political costs of environmental abuses, is the best framework through which to view MTR. In addressing domestic and global environmental practices, there exists a split between "mainstream" environmental groups and "grassroots" or "alternative" movements. According to Riley Dunlap (American Environmentalism: The U.S. Environmental Movement, 1970-1990, 1-8), mainstream groups, such as the Sierra Club, are mostly national in origin and more concerned with preservation, animal rights, and general environmental health. They typically consist of white, male, middle-class leadership and constituency, mostly focused on national legislation and litigation, rarely reaching out to minority communities (30). Robert Gottlieb (Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement) suggests that grassroots movements, distinct from mainstream groups, emerged in the 1970s focusing on issues such as empowerment, environmental justice, equity, and urban and industrial restructuring. They are frequently critical of the environmental policy system and "the role



124 Women 's Studies Quarterly 2001: 1 &f 2

of mainstream groups in helping to shape and sustain it" (170). Grassroots groups, or environmental justice movements, are predom- inately local in nature, more participatory, focused on action, and "critical of the roles of expertise and lobbying in defining environmental agendas" (170). These groups typically have a more diverse leadership and constituency, an involvement that many claim reflects the fact that minorities are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. Furthermore, grassroots movements connect environmental issues to larger concerns of politics, economic equity, and social justice. In his article "The Environmental Justice Movement," David Comacho claims there are current attempts at coalition building among mainstream environmentalism and environmental justice advocates, but significant differences remain. Comacho suggests the crux of the problem is that mainstream environmentalism has not "fully recognized the fact that social inequality and imbalances of power contribute to the environmental hazards that disproportionately impact people of color along with poor and working-class whites. There is generally a lack of con- cern over 'justice' in the mainstream environmental movement" (12). Indeed, mainstream environmentalism has seemed more concerned with the environment "for its own sake," failing to address concerns of national and international distributive justice. After all, it is the accumulation of wealth and uneven development that give rise to environmental problems, and without looking at these structural realities, mainstream environmentalism merely treats the symptoms of the disease instead of searching for cures. As Andrew Dobson asserts injustice and the Environment: Conceptions of Environmental Sustainability and Dimensions of Social Justice, leftist criticism suggests that environmentalism is wrong to claim that "everyone suffers equally from environmental degradation," when "environmental risk is skewed in the direction of those least able to afford to protect themselves against it" (19). Dobson suggests environmental justice claims the "environment is no more . . . than a particular form of the goods and bads that society must divide among its members," and that fundamentally, environmental justice does not mean "justice to the environment" but refers rather to a just distribution of environmental goods and bads among human populations" (20). Essentially, environmental justice is "only about the natural environment inasmuch as it can be seen in terms of human justice" (24). Such an assessment makes mainstream environmentalists uneasy, for these groups have tended to construct a separation between humans and the "natural world." Environmental justice views are often seen as unethical and even anthropocentric. However, what can be considered "environmentalism" or environ-



Women's Studies Quarterly 2001: 1 &2 125

mental movements in public consciousness frequently fails to acknowl- edge that people of color and the poor are often the prime victims of environmental destruction and pollution.

In her article "Environmental Justice from the Grassroots: Reflections on History, Gender, and Expertise," Giovanna Di Chiro claims that the majority of local environmental justice activists are low-income women and women of color, although men occupy the highest status in the larger movement. Di Chiro states that even though women are a strong presence in environmental justice activism, many are "reluctant to call themselves environmentalists at all ... due to the dominance of the mainly white, middle-class, and 'uncritically' 'preservationist' political culture from which much of the mainstream environmental thinking has developed . . . issues pertaining to human health and survival, community and workplace poisoning, and economic sustainability are generally not considered to be an important part of the environmental agenda" (105). Di Chiro correctly notes that with environmental justice, the merging of social justice and environmental interests is grounded by the assumption that people are an integral part of what we understand to be the "environment." Many women who engage in social activism are rural women who typically become involved in struggles that affect their families and community. In her book Gendered Fields, Carolyn Sachs notes that rural women are frequently reluctant to form "feminist organizations that focus specifically on actively chal- lenging male authority and privilege . . . although rural women have not been at the forefront of feminist movements they take steps to sig- nificantly shape their lives" (9). Sachs claims that such work involves a range of "grassroots organization in cooperatives, rotating credit schemes, resistance to environmental destruction, and women's land movements" (9). Like many women in rural areas throughout the world, Appalachian women have also engaged in various forms of struggles for social justice, including manning picket lines during coal strikes, forming human chains to stop strip mining operations, or join- ing local environmental groups to pressure state officials to regulate mountaintop removal operations. As heads of their families, many women in southern West Virginia face the difficult decision of hold- ing steadfastly to their property and way of life in the face of consid- erable pressure from the coal industry to sell their homes and move to other areas. In an MTR report on the popular news program Nightline, citizens from the small town of Blair, West Virginia (arguably the town most adversely affected by mountaintop removal) discussed the environmental hazards of staying in their homes in the face of industry blasts that are one hundred times more powerful than the




Oklahoma City bombing. One resident, Vickie Moore, claims that she and her husband owned a trailer in Blair and had plans to build a house in the area, but were forced to sell their property and relocate to another town. Moore says "I had the opportunity to get away from it, and I left ... I loved my place here, but I don't want to come back. It was a nice community to live in. Everybody knew everybody. Everybody was friends with everybody and now it's dead. Blair is no more. It's history. I think the coal company will win just as they have in the past and there will be a lot less small communities." Moore has been an outspoken critic of mountaintop removal, speaking before the state legislature and at MTR opposition rallies. She and her husband have also filed a lawsuit against Arch Coal Company, citing the company with creating noxious and unbearable living conditions in her hometown. In the article "Environmental Justice and the Role of Indigenous Women Organizing Their Communities," David Bretting and Diane-Michele Prindeville examine the political efforts of women who seek to raise awareness about environmental problems in their local communities. Bretting and Prindeville claim that "working women's activism has spread beyond issues of reproduction into the productive sphere, raising the political consciousness of its partici- pants." Furthermore, by "obtaining support at the grassroots level and adopting active leadership roles in their communities, women assert their position in the policy making process" (154). Vickie Moore is like many residents in West Virginia who have taken action against the practice of MTR, and such political endeavors by ordinary citizens has led the executive director of the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, Nora Steenstra, to call the recent activism a "reinvigoration of the grassroots movement to obtain legislative, legal, and administrative remedies" for the problems created by MTR (Loeb, "Coal Activists Stir Up Dust in West Virginia," 1) .

As has been noted throughout this essay, West Virginia's political, economic, and social climate has been changing rapidly during the 1990s, primarily due to changes in the coal industry, including that of mountaintop removal. Because of these changes, MTR cannot be strictly conceived of as an environmental issue, and must be viewed through the lens of environmental justice, with its emphasis on social, economic, and political equity as a means to ameliorate environmental differences. As Daniel Faber has suggested in "The Struggle for Ecological Democracy and Environmental Justice," the roots of ecological problems and injustices are macro in scale, "grounded in the expansionary dynamics of the global capitalist system" (2). Faber main- tains that because of market competition,



Women *s Studies Quarterly 2001: 1 & 2 127

U.S. capital must continuously increase investment and productive capacity, introduce more efficient technologies that produce com- modities more cheaply, introduce new consumer products and enlarge markets, and undertake many other measures for capital accumulation ... to sustain the process of capital accumulation and higher profits in the new global economy, American capital is increas- ingly reliant upon ecologically and socially unsustainable forms of production. (3)

Faber, like many environmental justice advocates, points out that not all Americans bear social and ecological "costs" of capitalist production equally. In order to "bolster profits and competition, busi- nesses typically adopt strategies for the exploitation of nature that offer the path of least political resistance" (4). He suggests that "the less political power a community of people possesses, the fewer the resources a community has to defend itself with," and "the lower the level of community awareness and mobilization against potential ecological threats, the more likely they are to experience arduous environmental and human health problems at the hands of capital and state" (4).

The presence of women is particularly crucial to capitalist expansion because, as Ellen Meiksins Wood {Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism) points out, gender is used by capitalism as a way of "organizing social reproduction in what is thought (maybe incorrectly) to be the least expensive way. With the existing organization of gender relations, the costs to capital of reproducing labor power can be kept down - or so it has generally been thought -

by keeping the costs of childbearing and child rearing in the private sphere of the family" (269-70). Another useful insight, when consid- ering how capitalism depends upon women's reproductive labor and

surplus value in order to expand, is found in Elizabeth Eviota's study, The Political Economy of Gender. Eviota claims:

Reproductive work in the capitalist economy also entails much more than what is subsumed in the terms "housekeeping" or "housewives." It is work that takes place outside the market sphere but is integrated into it: no worker, male or female, would be able to sell labour power to a capitalist unless basic needs were first met. In reality, then, the household and maintenance work of women is the material base for the reproduction of living labour without which capital cannot appropriate surplus. Women's reproductive work serves both the interests of men and capital. (15)



128 Women s Studies Quarterly 2001: 1 & 2

In many ways, West Virginia is the perfect site for big business to oper- ate most economically and efficiently. It is a state rich in natural resources, with an abetting political system that ensures political-economic success with the least resistance from citizens. Historically, the state's economy has been one of the weakest in the nation. The state ranks forty-ninth in household income, and has experienced a significant population decrease, as many residents relocate to other states in search of better economic opportunities. Socially, West Virginia's rates of teen pregnancy, maternal health problems, occupational injury, obesity, deaths from heart disease, lung problems, and cancer are all above the national average (Brisbin et al., West Virginia Politics and Government, 7) . Given the economic, social, and political situations in West Virginia, mountain top removal operators have indeed chosen the path of least possible political resistance to the exploitation of nature and society by locating their operations in West Virginia. Therefore, as Daniel Faber points out, "until the environmental movement can fully integrate considerations of social justice and ecological democracy into a more holistic framework, critiquing the justness of social relations, and the workings of global capitalism, America's social and ecological crises will only worsen" ("Struggle for Ecological Democracy," 4) . As David Harvey's work suggests, we need critical ways to think about how differences in "ecological, cultural, economic, political and social conditions get produced . . . and we also need ways to evaluate the justice-injustices of the differences so produced" (Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference, 400) . He argues that environmental justice discourse and action must confront the underlying processes that generate environmental and social injustices. Harvey claims this is "fundamentally a class project . . . because it entails a direct challenge to the circulation and accumulation of capital which currently dictates what environmental transformations occur and why" (401). Harvey's is a more comprehensive theoretical approach that questions social relations and formations and their impact on environmental destruction, providing a larger conceptual apparatus through which to examine the effects of mountaintop removal in West Virginia, and the efficacy of environmental strategies in combating the deleterious outcomes of MTR in the state.

REFERENCES Bretting, David, and Diane-Michele Prindeville. "Environmental Justice and

the Role of Indigenous Women Organizing Their Communities." In Environmental Injustices, Political Struggles: Race, Class, and the Environment, edited by David Cormacho. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998, pp. 141-64.



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Brisbin, Richard A., Jr., et al. West Virginia Politics and Government. Lincoln:

University of Nebraska Press, 1996. Comacho, David. "The Environmental Justice Movement." In Environmental

Injustices, Political Struggles: Race, Class, and the Environment, edited by David Cormacho. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998, pp. 12-30.

Di Chiro, Giovanna. "Environmental Justice from the Grassroots: Reflections on History, Gender and Expertise." In The Struggle for Ecological Democracy: Environmental Justice Movements in the U.S., edited by Daniel Faber. New York: Guilford Press, 1998, pp. 104-37.

Digging Deep: The Cost of Cheap Energy." Narr. Ted Koppel and Barry Serafin. Nightline. ABC. WABC, New York. 21 Apr. 1998.

Dobson, Andrew. Justice and the Environment: Conceptions of Environmental

Sustainability and Dimensions of Social Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Dunlap, Riley, and Angela Mertig, eds. American Environmentalism: The U.S Environmental Movement, 1970-1990. Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis, 1992.

Eviota, Elizabeth. The Political Economy of Gender. London: Zed Books, 1992. Faber, Daniel. "The Struggle for Ecological Democracy and Environmental

Justice." In The Struggle for Ecological Democracy: Environmental Justice Movements in the U.S., edited by Daniel Faber. New York: Guilford Press, 1998, pp. 1-26.

Fisher, Steve. "Natural Economic Renewal Programs and Their Implications for Appalachia and the South." In Communities in Economic Crisis, edited by John Gaventa, Barbara Ellen Smith, and Alex Willingham. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990, pp. 263-78.

Gaventa, John, Barbara Ellen Smith, and Alex Willingham. "Development, Democracy, and Dignity." Communities in Economic Crisis, edited by John Gaventa, Barbara Ellen Smith, and Alex Willingham. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990, pp. 279-91.

Gottlieb, Robert. Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environ- mental Movement. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993.

Harvey, David. Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1996.

Highlands Conservancy. "Mining Bill a Sham." Apr. 1999: 1 page. Online. Available: <http://www.wvhighlands.org/>. 25 Apr. 1999.

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Joyce Barry is a Ph.D. candidate in the American Culture Studies program at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. She is currently writ- ing a dissertation on mountaintop removal while serving as an English instruc- tor at the State University of New York in Oneonta.

Copyright © 2001 by Joyce Barry



Mountaineers Are Always Free:? An Examination of the Effects of Mountaintop Removal in West Virginia

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