Published: March 13, 2008 03:17 pm            

Miners rally in Frankfort against stream saver bill

Say mountaintop removal opponents are trying to take away miners' jobs

FRANKFORT, Ky. — More than 2,000 eastern Kentucky coal miners and supporters rallied on the steps of the state capitol Thursday, accusing lawmakers and environmentalists who pushed legislation to protect mountain streams from mine spoilage of trying to take away their jobs.



School children played in the spring-like weather and a high school band was on hand to provide music. People wore tee-shirts that said “Coal – our future” and carried signs. One read: “Harry Moberly, don’t take my daddy’s job.”



Moberly of Richmond, who chairs the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee, held hearings on a bill sponsored by Rep. Don Pasley, D-Winchester, which would ban coal companies from pushing waste from mountaintop removal sites into adjacent valleys and streams which contributes to sediment and pollution down stream. The “stream saver bill” was assigned to the Natural Resource and Environment Committee chaired by Jim Gooch, D-Providence, who refused to call the bill for a hearing and who was on hand Thursday.



The rally was a response to the hearings on Pasley’s bill and an earlier rally by those who supported the bill, led by The Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. About 1,000 attended that rally on a bitterly cold day a few weeks ago.



Moberly and Pasley were targets of criticism from fellow lawmakers from the coal fields on Thursday. Several speakers, including a couple of coal field lawmakers, said they wanted to take miners’ jobs away.



Tim Couch, R-Hyden, said he worked 17 years in underground mines. That “makes me a no vote on this ridiculous bill to take your jobs away!”



“That stinking stream saver bill didn’t have two votes in committee,” followed Keith Hall, D-Phelps, who sits on both Gooch’s and Moberly’s committees. Moberly, Hall said, tried to pull a fast one by substituting Pasley’s bill for one he’d filed.



“But they forgot I sit on A&R too.”



Moberly shrugged when he heard about some of the comments.



“It’s a free country. Those who want to complain about the stream saver bill are free to do so,” he said. “We still think it’s good public policy.”



Pasley said there is a difference between those who rallied Thursday and those who came to Frankfort to support the bill.



“KFTC is an activist group that spends their time lobbying for the stream saver bill and they’re not paid by a mining interest,” Pasley said. “They spend their time advocating for the environment and the people of eastern Kentucky.”



Other lawmakers saw it differently, however. House Majority Leader Rocky Adkins, D-Sandy Hook, said coal must be part of the equation of improving the quality of life in eastern Kentucky. He said he knows what the miners do for a living.



“We respect you, we thank you for what you’ve done, and we need you,” Adkins said.



Rep. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, who worked both as an underground and surface miner to pay her way through law school, said she is “proud to be a coal miner. I went to law school to protect your jobs. You’re why I’m here and I’m going to protect your safety and protect your jobs until I leave here.” Webb has sponsored several pieces of legislation on miner safety.



Danny Pelphrey, a miner who works for the James River Coal Company, said critics of mountaintop removal “want us to live in eastern Kentucky, but we want to live good. We can’t do that without mountaintop removal.” He said what others call mountaintop removal, people in eastern Kentucky call development.



“When you see representatives on the street,” Pelphrey said, “tell them to protect our jobs, because that’s what they’re up here for.”



Ricky Handshoe, a retired employee of Kentucky State Police from Hueysville in Floyd County who is a member of KFTC, said contour mining and mountaintop removal actually diminish the number of coal jobs because it is so mechanized.



“Look, they’ve got to work – I understand that,” Handshoe said. “But there’s a way to do it and not destroy the environment. They used to do it that way. If they had to do it the way they used to, there’d be a lot more jobs.”



The stream saver bill died in Moberly’s committee for lack of votes and is likely dead for this session. But Moberly – and others on his committee – promised the debate would continue in the future.



Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort, Ky. He may be contacted by email at rellis@cnhi.com.

        

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