Last Coal Miner out of WV turn out the Lights!

       I attended the rally at the DEP headquarters in Charleston on Monday to demand an end to
blasting on Coal River Mountain.  I had the opportunity to speak with several miners there
including a friendly Massey Employee from Mingo county.  He told me that without coal mining there
would be nothing- no jobs, no money.  Without coal mining he would have to leave his home to look
for work elsewhere.  He supports MTR because it supports him and his family.  At least in the
short term.  And while we disagreed on MTR, we could agree that politicians are worthless. 
    
       But it got me thinking because I hear the same points over and over - There is no
alternative, without mining we'd have nothing.  Many say they would love to get out of
mining, if only there were something else. 

       Do I need to point out that there are people living in rural areas all over this country that
aren't dependent on coal mining to survive?  You miners complain about the lack of options,
of alternatives but you've got to make it happen.  You complain endlessly about the "outsiders" interfering in your business but you want the same "outsiders" to give you another job.  Stop waiting for someone else to do it for you.  YOU make it happen, Take responsibility for diversifying the economy of southern West
Virginia.   Start farming (all that flat land down there now, right!), start sustainable
forestry operations, fight for federal funds for mine and stream reclamation work, make
furniture, whatever.   Why not?  All of our ancestors had to make their own way in these
hills before mining and if there's any clean water left our descendants will have to make
their own way after the mining stops.   With those fat miner paychecks you ought to be able to put aside something to help start a business with. 

       The miner's I've talked with (the ones that haven't tried to shout me out anyway) seem to be 
decent people.  When it comes down to it I think that most all of us want the same basic
things.  We want the ability to provide for our families, we want to be free and healthy, we
want good food to eat, clean water to drink, and clear air to breath.  These are things we
all want because they are necessary for our survival.  The issue is that some people believe
that they can have these things and have coal mining too.  I disagree.  The coal mining areas
of our state tend to be the sickest, they have the dirtiest air, the foulest water.   I've
personally walked through the playground at Marsh Fork elementary and had my feet blackened
with coal dust.  I've seen the bags and bags of coal dust samples taken from the sides of
homes in the coal river valley.  I've seen the blackwater spills that poison the streams. 
Sure, several thousand miners are making a good paycheck, but we all suffer for it with our
health.  

       To be fair, coal mining isn't the only problem we face.  Many miners told me that they feel
that mining is being unfairly targeted.  Why aren't we going after the gas companies that are
wrecking people's wells, or the raw sewage going into so many streams, or the chemical
companies in the Kanawha valley?  It's a good point, and I hope we are able to deal with all
of these issues in turn, but we have to start somewhere, and that somewhere is with coal.  

the church is down...

After eight consecutive 12 hour days of labor of a most difficult variety, I managed to haul out all the lumber I had salvaged and stacked in the church, just hours before the demolition.    I got the oak floor and the subfloor, and about a dozen 2x12 joists.  With a few more days I could have knocked out the remaining 50 or so joists as well as the last of the t&g pine unstairs, but I'm pretty happy with what I managed to get out.    I was told by the church pastor on friday evening that the church board decided they did not want anyone working over there on sunday (the day before demo).   It IS the lord's day after all.   Even if that means many trees worth of lumber will be sent to the landfill rather than be reused and given a new life.   On sunday, as I rested (and on the seventh day...) I thought about this.   I thought about how, in addition to jesus dying for them, the many trees that formed their church, their shelter, their place of worship,, also died for them.  Living, breathing trees gave their lives so that folks could worship god in a dry warm room.   It only seems right to honor those trees by giving them new life rather than unceremoniously dumping them in the trash.   I didn't complain though (at least not to them) as I am grateful that they gave me the opportunity to salvage what I did.
I cheated a bit by going back sunday night at 10pm to start hauling rather that waiting for midnight and official monday.   By 3am monday I was done.  By noon the church was gone.   At one I took a nap.  Now it's back to the house.....

 

 

From http://www.shift2020.com

Racing against time, snow, the demolition man....

I recently stumbled into a goldmine of free material.   Thousands of square feet of oak and pine hardwood floors, 1x6 pine subfloor, 2x8 and 2x10 joists, 2x4s, etc.   There's only one catch.  I have possibly as little as one more day to get out what I can before the demolition man comes with his giant machinery to tear the building to shreds and haul it away.    While I was away for thanksgiving week another guy began removing the roof to get at the roof sheathing and rafters.  At this point half the roof is gone and it's supposed to rain and snow the rest of the week.  I've worked frantically, fanatically the last three days removing flooring.  I am so exhausted that I fell asleep twice while reading the kids their bedtime storybook then fell asleep again in the shower.   I am hallucinating.   All I can think about is lumber lumber lumber lumber..... I'm going to bed.

*UPDATE WED 12/02:  demolition man has POSTPONED until monday!   Yeehaw!

long day...

       I really like the feel of the house with everything opened up.    I would love to keep it this way and I've been considering some options.  In order to make it work I would have to remove the entire roof structure and rebuild it with a steeper pitch and some dormers to make room for an upstairs.  Would it be worth it?  It would be a hell of a lot of extra work, but it would make for a really open and roomy main level. 

       The ceiling joists are 2x6s, 16 inches apart.  To meet code for second story living space I would probably have to remove them and replace with 2x8s or larger.  

I'll need to talk to the building department to find out exactly what they'll require for a second story addition.

It may not be in the cards for this house....we'll see. 

good finds and dumpster dives...

I've always wanted a urinal.  My dreams came true when I got this one from a church that's being torn down in St. Albans.    It makes me happy to know that countless churchgoers have used the urinal that will be in our house and while I'll never know if they found redemption in all those Sunday mornings, I can be certain they at least found relief.  

I'm also receiving, for free, about 2,000 square feet of tongue and groove oak hardwood flooring.  I started pulling it up a few days ago.  I have no idea where I will store it all. 

Last night at a construction dumpster I found this great bike rack that we can lock our bikes to...

And today I found some little pencil drawings on the underside of a piece of old pine flooring that I pulled up from the old kitchen.

the river...

       We lay in our tent by the Williams River.   Stars by the thousands above us in the sky, the locust wood fire burning hot nearby, and the song of the river flowing.   I listened to that river song and thought of how long that sound has filled this river valley.   I thought of the thousands of years this clear water has coursed over and through the boulders here and of the many people before me who listened to this same beautiful song.    Long before the timber companies came through to clearcut the ancient hemlock, chestnut, oak, hickory; Long before the road builders came with their dozers and backhoes to grade and blast the steep rocky riverbank;  Before all that, someone lay here on this riverbank, looking at those same thousands of stars in the sky through a wintergreen canopy of rhododendron and hemlock and listened to this river's song as we did.    I hope that thousands of years from now, when the ancient trees have grown back, and the road has long since disappeared, that someone will lay here, in this spot, listening to this same river's song, and give thanks. 

       I got out the bow drill and began cutting a new notch in the fireboard.   U* asked what I was doing and I told her that I was preparing to make a fire.  She watched as I cut the notch deeper into the board, then placed the cedar spindle on the notch's point and began to burn it in.  The notch filled with the dark brown wood dust and began to smoke as I worked the bow.   I carefully removed the spindle and let our tiny coal burn while I told U* how the coal was like a fragile egg that needed a nest so that it could grow.  We made a nest for it, our tinder bundle, by shredding up some toilet paper that was close at hand and then carefully tapped out the coal.  I gently enveloped the coal in the tinder and we took turns blowing life into it, watching the coal grow and glow red in the center of it's nest.   
Every stick holds a fire, each twig carries the stored energy of the sun. 

       This is freedom.  A wild river, a cold morning, chasing the long rays of the sun for warmth.   I was told the other day that if we stopped using electricity we would be living in the dark ages again.   I think the opposite is true.   If we turn off our lights, our appliances, all the screens that fill our collective nightly vision - TV, computer - imagine what we might begin to see, to hear, to experience.   The world is out here, waiting, if we don't destroy it first.    The happiest times of my life have taken place in the absence of electricity - a  month walking the high mountains of New Mexico;  Sharing songs and stories around a campfire in the cascades, defending a tiny piece of the forest I love;  Dark nights in deep Utah canyons, singing with coyotes under more stars than I knew existed.   It isn't the lights and gadgets that give us happiness.   Electricity is irrelevant to our happiness, inconsequential as a measure of our well-being.   Happiness for me in those times was found in community - in shared purpose, shared song. 

weekend at the williams river...

earth creature. a parable.

       I was in Gabriel Brothers awhile back. I picked out a couple of t-shits and took them up to the checkout counter.  The cashier rang them in and I said (as I do at every store) "I don't need a bag, I'll just carry them out".   She stopped.   She looked at me with astonishment.   There was a moment of silence before she slowly formed the words "Are you one of them...earth.....creatures?"     That's what stumbled out.  The Gabriel Bros. cashier asked me if I was an earth creature.     I gave it a moment to sink in, then I smiled, and said "Aren't we all?"     She looked at me and said very seriously that Gabriel Brothers policy is that every purchase leaves the store in a bag, and that I did, in fact, need one. 
       I said, "Okay, but I'm bringing it back to you."
Then I took my bagged t-shits to the car, removed them from the bag, and returned the bag to the cashier.   I didn't stay to see, but I'll bet she threw it straight in the trash.

the bathroom comes down...

This was originally a porch.  Later the floor was raised, the walls closed in, and it became the bathroom.   In our plan this bathroom is being moved to the middle of the house and this space will become a part of the bedroom next to it.   I pulled the floor up because I'll need to rebuild it to the exact level of the floor it will be joining (left side of photo) and because I wanted to check the condition of the main drain/sewer line out of the house.   I'm glad I did because it's in rough shape.   The sink drain had rotted away from the main drain line and for who knows how long has been draining directly into the crawl space.  The T joint in the main sewer where that sink connected is also broken and will have to be dug up and replaced.    I don't know of any way to check the condition of the sewer line between the house and the street except for having a plumber send a little pipe camera down there.  I really hope I don't have to dig up and repace the sewer all the way out to the main line at the street.  It's a long way from the house to the road. 

layers upon layers upon layers...

       I decided this morning that it was time to get down into the floor of the past-kitchen-future-bathroom to find out what's going on down there since it's one of only two spots in the house that were topped in linoleum over plywood rather than the original hardwood flooring.  I had pulled out the linoleum sheet last week and today I assumed that I would pull up the plywood and find the pine strip subfloor underneath.  So, up came the first corner piece of plywood, and underneath?  Another floor.    Another linoleum floor, this time tiles in a quaint blue-white checkerboard pattern.  And under that?  Another layer of plywood.  Under the second layer of plywood, A third layer of maroon linoleum sheet flooring.  Finally, under three layers of linoleum and two layers of plywood I found the original subfloor.
       In between each layer of flooring were shims that had been put in to level the particular layer being added.  I found as I removed layers of flooring and shims that the center of the room got lower and lower.  Now, with nothing left but the subfloor there's a major dip running down the middle.  It's probably two inches lower than the floor at the perimeter wall.  Also, In the upper right of the pictures below you can see the one spot of rot in the house.  It's below where the sink was and it's the only water damage I've found.   Since this room is going to be a tiled bathroom I need the floor under the tile to be rock solid and perfectly level.  So, I'll be ripping out this entire floor, re-leveling the joists, and moving the joists closer together so they're 12 inches on center rather than 24.  That, in addition to blocking between the joists, will make for a fine tiling substrate!

 

 

 

the plaster is gone!

       After many delays and much much work, the house is finally free of it's plaster cast.  All said, I hauled just shy of 15,000 pounds of plaster to the landfill (14,940 to be exact according to my landfill receipts).  I'm quite happy to be relieved of that heavy burden.   My next major landfill contribution will be the three layers of asphalt shingles on the roof and the 2000-or-so square feet of asbestos cement siding.   I feel okay about this because, as I read on the side of the Waste Management (WM) refuse truck this morning - "WM's landfills provide over 17,000 acres of wildlife habitat".  So, I'm actually helping the planet by throwing things away!    
        Actually, there's really just no other choice.  I find it fascinating that in such a supposedly "advanced" society we still have not come up with a better solution that just throwing billions of tons of (often hazardous) waste in enormous holes in the ground and covering it back up.   Recycling is a good start but ultimately industrial society should not produce anything that has to be disposed of in a hole in the ground (unless it's safe enough to eat).   On second thought, we ought to only be producing and using products that can be safely thrown in a hole in the ground without permanently contaminating the water and soil.
       The century-old plaster itself is fairly inert (consisting mainly of lime, horsehair, and sand) and could have been used as fill in the backyard (saving me countless hours of hauling and hundreds of dollars) but for the many layers of lead paint on it's surface.  Come to think of it, with the notable exception of large quantities of lead paint on the interior walls and exterior clapboards, this house, as it was originally built, was a very healthy house - the foundation is local sandstone, and the rest of the house was built entirely of real wood (as opposed to modern particle boards and plywoods which contain toxic glues, binders, and preservatives) fastened with square cut steel nails. Even the original roof was cedar shingles over 1 by 8 pine sheathing (no asphalt underlayment).    If the home's creators had chosen instead to use non-toxic milk (casein) paint rather than lead paint my experience now, a hundred years thence, would be vastly improved. 
       I'm making every effort as I rebuild this house to minimize it's future landfill burden.  I'm planning for the roof to be steel since it's made with recycled metal, lasts a long time, and is 100% recyclable when it's eventually removed.   I'm leaning toward cedar shingles for the siding if I can find a manufacturer that sources their wood from genuinely sustainable forestry operations (this will be tough).  Untreated cedar shingles are non-toxic, and at the end of their useful life can be burned for firewood or just left in a heap to decompose without contaminating the soil and water (as long as no-one applies toxic stain to them).    I would love to re-plaster the interior using clay/lime/straw plaster rather than the now ubiquitous standardized industrial modern wall-covering of choice - drywall.   If so I can even re-use the wood lath that held the original plaster in place. 
       In any case, I hope to rebuild this house as a structure that can give many more years of comforting shelter and when the time comes, either gracefully decompose to nourish the surrounding soil or be be deconstructed and laid to rest without causing harm to either those working to disassemble it or to the land that will be it's final resting place.  
     

two sides of coal...

I came across a decent anti-coal video here that gives a quick summary of the some of the damages done during the coal life cycle and includes some powerful photos of coal industry destruction.   Please pass it on. 

PS: I often hear the frustrated retort that these sorts of videos only tell one side of the story.  So, here's the other side - a few thousand coal miners in economically depressed areas get paid decent wages to obliterate the landscape, a few coal industry big boys get real rich obliterating the landscape, coal counties get tax money and we all get real cheap electricity to waste.    The "other side" can be summed up in one word - money.   So what's more important to you, money or life?     Basically it's like arguing that a video saying we shouldn't beat up homeless people for fun only tells one side of the story.  Yea, that's because that's the only side that needs to be told.  It's wrong.   It needs to stop.  End of story. 
       Or, imagine if all the rapists in the world got together, hired a marketing firm, bought a bunch of advertising, and demanded that their side of the story be told.  Would that make it worth listening to?   

Regarding climate change....

 I saw several articles recently related to a recent poll finding "that the number of Americans who believed that man-made global warming was occurring, or that a hotter planet was a serious problem, had fallen precipitously. In April 2008, 71 percent of Americans said that global warming was happening, and 47 percent said it was man-made. In the new poll, only 57 percent of Americans said any global warming was happening, and 36 percent said it was man-made."   

       It reminded me of an on-air conversation I had with a right-wing radio host in Columbia last year during so-called 'Earth Hour' where people across the country (world?) turned off their lights simultaneously for an hour.  This host, by the name of Gary Nolan, was encouraging his listeners to turn ON their lights during earth hour in protest.   I was driving home when I heard this and had to pull over and call into the show to point out to him how pathetic that was.   We had a fine on-air conversation about some of the negative consequences of energy production.  Unfortunately we were cut short by the end of his time slot.  After I  returned home I felt compelled to write him and e-mail clarifying and expanding on our conversation.  It went like this....

 __________________________________________________________________________________

       Hi Gary,

My name is C---, I called your show Monday at the end of your discussion on global climate change.  I've actually never heard your show before, I just happened to be flipping stations and the topic caught my attention.  Therefore I don’t know much about you or your politics.  I’m assuming from our short discussion that you are libertarian and I would bet that we could agree on many points.  I for one support gun ownership rights, very limited small government, and I dream for the day that people in our society will take responsibility for their own actions rather than forever shifting the blame and making excuses.  Above all, I believe in the importance of wilderness preservation and of clean air, water, and land, accessible to everyone, because without those things we cannot have true freedom.  Without clean air, land, and water we will always be utterly dependent on those in power for our very lives.   Whether that means being forced to buy water from a corporation because we can no longer drink from our own wells (as is the case in many parts of Appalachia due to coal mining and gas drilling) or being dependent on the pharmaceutical corporations for the oxygen we breathe (as is the case for hundreds of thousands of children and adults in the southeast United States who have developed asthma and other respiratory diseases from breathing air polluted by particulates and heavy metals from coal fired power plants and are now dependent on inhalers and medications for their ability to breathe).   

    When the environment that literally sustains our lives is destroyed and polluted we lose our health and we lose our freedom to live independent lives.   I could go on and on about the ways in which freedom and healthy ecosystems are absolutely inseparable.  I can only guess at your stance on guns but I am always amazed at how forcefully many conservatives will fight for their right to own firearms while ridiculing those of us who fight for our right to clean air and water, as if a healthy environment is any less critical to our lasting freedom and self-determination. 

    That is actually what motivated me to call in to your show.  When you boasted of turning all of you lights ON during earth hour I felt as though your broader statement was to ridicule and diminish the importance of the work being done to conserve energy and other resources around the world.   Like I said on your show, I don’t know if human instigated global climate change is real or not.  And I don’t particularly care.  I agreed with your guest, the professor, on the point that there probably is no ideal climate for planet earth, the climate moves and changes in cycles and life on earth adapts.   My reason for calling was to point out that uncertainty over the global climate situation really should not detract from our resolve to change our habits as individuals and as a society because those solutions invariably address other major issues of public health, national safety, and the extent of our liberty.   Global warming or not, our actions have real world consequences.   We need to stop mining and burning coal, we need to embrace energy efficiency, we need to change the way our cities are structured so that people aren’t forced to drive, we need bike lanes and more efficient cars, we need to do ALL the things that global climate change activists are working for but we don’t need to do it to prevent global warming; we need to do it because it will make us happier, healthier and make our cities and our planet more pleasant and livable.   So fine, debate global warming all you want, but don’t let your skepticism of one issue be an excuse to ignore the inarguable consequences of our way of life.

    And yes, like you said, when things get bad enough and resources scarce enough then market solutions will likely emerge.  Unfortunately we don’t always have the luxury of waiting for a market solution.  If we’re not switching to alternatives until all the coal is gone, then that means my homeland is gone with it.  That means the mountains, valleys, rivers, streams, forests, and communities I love and was raised in will have been completely wiped out so the rest of the country (not to mention china) can burn “cheap” coal till the very end.      The market doesn’t care about the mountains of my home or the people who have lived in them for generations; the market cares only about the cheapest and most efficient way possible to extract the maximum amount of coal.

     I’m interested to learn more about your comments on water ownership rights and how well that has worked where it has been tried.  Unfortunately, about 75 percent of the land in the WV coalfields is owned not by individuals but by corporations.  So could we sue them for infringement of fishing rights, etc. even if we aren’t waterfront landowners?    My other concern is that historically, many if those living in coalfield communities are extremely reluctant to challenge coal company practices, even if they oppose them, because of the likelihood of retaliation against them and their families.  In southern WV coal industry employees who speak out against the coal companies lose their jobs.  Their family members lose their jobs.  Those who don’t work for coal are threatened.  Their families are threatened, they are run off the road by coal trucks, their dogs are mysteriously shot.   In an economically depressed area with few employment opportunities the choice too often comes down to participating in the destruction of your own community by working the mines or being unemployed (or maybe commuting an hour for a min. wage job at the nearest wal-mart).

    Resource and energy issues are close to my heart.  Boasting of turning on all your lights to make a point about global warming implies that there are no consequences to our unnecessary consumption, it implies that people are not suffering for our excess.  It’s important to remember that people really are suffering when we flip the switch.  Right here in our own country.

 

-C---

 __________________________________________________________________________________

Autumn in Appalachia...

from a recent walk in the wallace-hartman nature preserve off of south ruffner rd.

i love this land.  I hate the people who are killing it.

Breaking: Mountaintop Removal Begins on Coal River Mountain -- Help Needed Now

BREAKING NEWS: Reports are coming in from residents of West Virginia's Coal River Valley that Massey Energy has begun mountaintop removal mining operations on Coal River Mountain. Sprawling across thousands of acres of diverse and pristine hardwood forests, this mountain is home to the tallest peaks ever permitted for destruction in the state of West Virginia. The mountain also became a powerful symbol of hope for a better future in the Appalachian coalfields after a study showed those peaks and ridges have wind resources as high as "Class 7," which is the highest rating on the scale.

Read more here and here

THE PERMIT AREA FOR THIS MINE IS COVERS OVER 6,000 ACRES.

All of the shaded area in this photo will be leveled and destroyed if it isn't stopped.

 

Solar Powered Renovation!

I finally got my solar system set up.  I haven't used any electricity thus far in the project but with the days getting shorter I wanted to be able to illuminate my workspace at night.

 

More Finds...

 

 

First Frost....

First Fire...