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“This is the first year that I can remember us having this here,” Massey employee Tim McCourt said.
“I think this is the first time at Black Castle; it’s not the first time at Massey. We plant about a million trees a year or so. We do this on occasion, and we’re pleased that Black Castle won the Excellence in Reforestation Award this year,” Don Blankenship, Chairman, President, and CEO of Massey Energy told reporters gathered for the event.
“Basically, we’re trying to make sure they have a balanced understanding of what energy production and the environment is all about,” said Blankenship. “We’re trying to let them see and learn on their own. We’re not really trying to teach them so much as to expose them to things that their minds are open to learning of their own effort. We’re trying to give them a chance to do it,” he said.
When asked what the Excellence in Reforestation Award meant for Massey, Blankenship said, “It means that we’re doing the right thing. One of the things in our slogan is doing the right thing with energy, and we’re trying to do our part – whether it is reforestation or creating jobs for West Virginia.”
According to Human Resource Manager Doug Kennedy, there are nearly 400 people currently working at the Black Castle mine. “We’re adding a new coal trucking company and adding 5500 units of excavator equipment,” he said.
The CVN posed a few questions to Massey’s Chairman, Don Blankenship, and a few of the miner.
Strip mining is a very controversial practice in this area and recently Massey was fined by the EPA for more than 4,000 violations of the Clean Water Act, where pollutants from coal slurry were dumped in West Virginia’s waterways.
When asked what steps the company has in place, or are you going to be taking, to make sure that won’t happen in the future, Blankenship said, “Well, first of all, our performance from the environmental and the safety side are better than most, and of course that gets overshadowed.”
“And secondly, we’ve done more than anybody that I know of in the industry where our impounds are three times as strong as other peoples’ are that we keep coal slurry or dark water in. We’re constantly adding environmental improvements with computer monitoring so we can tell whether the water is actually doing what it should do and we have written manuals on training on a constant basis to try to improve our peoples’ efforts. So, we’re doing everything that we know to do and certainly we are doing better than anyone else in this line of business,” Blankenship told the CVN.
“Once strip mining is done, the land is left in much better condition, appearance-wise, and the land can be used for area development to make golf courses, airports, and housing. Before the mining begins, it’s usually an area that you can’t get to easily that is very remote,” Massey employee Jimmy Baisden said.
“Massey considers reclamation efforts to be part and parcel of any successful mining operation. We are proud of the efforts made by the members at Black Castle,” Blankenship said.
This Boone County event was part of Operation Springboard 2008, Restoring the American Chestnut on Mined Land in the Appalachians, a regional effort to revive a piece of Appalachia’s natural heritage, according to press release statements.
Scott Eggerud from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and Brad Edwards from the United State Office of Surface Mining attended the event.
According to Edwards, generally in order to receive a permit to strip mine, a coal company had to have a plan on what that land would look like after the mining was finished.
“Today, you’ll see rows where a bulldozer has gone and loosened the ground up. This promotes tree growth,” Edwards said.
Known as the “Redwood of the East,” the American chestnut once flourished in West Virginia, providing early pioneers with resources from the cradle to the grave, until a fungus nearly wiped out the species in the early 1900s, explained Edwards.
“The American Chestnut Foundation has been working for 25 years to develop a blight-resistant American chestnut,” said Marshal Case, President and CEO of the American Chestnut Foundation in a press release.
“Working with partners like Massey Energy, The American Chestnut Foundation, and WVU, Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative is helping to ensure a future for these mighty giants in the Appalachian region,” Case said in the prepared statement.
Madison Middles School’s 7th grade students from Mr. Bias, Miss Ellis and Miss Russell’s classes were invited to tour the mine, learn about reclamation and reforestation, and help replant American chestnut trees. Students also enjoyed lunch and were provided educational materials, t-shirts and other Arbor Day gifts.
The middle school students were instructed to dig a hole, then using a blue tree tube, to place the seedling 1 to 2-inches in the soil.
“The tree tubes are there to try and keep animals away and it increases a little bit of moisture to the seedling,” Edwards said.
According to Edwards, the seedlings being planted on Friday are not of the blight-resistant variety. Rather, he expects that after about 20 years, the trees will succumb to the disease.
“This is sort of an experiment to see how well they do in the mine soil,” Edwards said.
According to Edwards, the reforestation efforts include planting a variety of three or more hardwood trees in the reclaimed area.
When asked how many species of trees were destroyed in order to mine the land, Edwards was uncertain.
“However, we expect that other vegetation, such as ginseng and other trees will begin to grow in the canopy of shade that these trees will offer over the years,” he said. According to Edwards, other varieties of trees will make their way to this area as their seeds are carried on the wind.
Edwards cited Catenary Coal’s mine in Kanawha County as a good example for people to go and see what reclaimed mine land looks like. “It’s sort of the textbook way of doing it,” he said.
Rounding out the day’s events, an explosives demonstration was staged for the assembled group of students, employees, and media. As Massey employees counted down from 10, the students chimed in, 3…2…1, and a set of explosives were discharged on a facing mountainside.
“Planting the trees was fun, but I liked the explosion the best,” seventh-grader Blake Lambert told the Coal Valley News.
Contact Joanie Newman at jnewman@coalvalleynews.com or call 369-1165.
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