Syracuse University SURFACE Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Geography - Theses Affairs 8-2013 Battle for the Mountains: Restructuring Extractive Production and the Socio-ecological Crisis in West Virginia's Coalfields Ben Marley Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/geo_thesis Part of the Geography Commons, History Commons, and the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Marley, Ben, "Battle for the Mountains: Restructuring Extractive Production and the Socio-ecological Crisis in West Virginia's Coalfields" (2013). Geography - Theses. 6. https://surface.syr.edu/geo_thesis/6 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Geography - Theses by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract The coalfields of southern West Virginia have faced recurring crises linked to its regional political economy. Today’s crisis is constituted by the decimation on the United Mine Workers of America and the greater use of mountaintop removal coal mining in conjunction with policies and market conditions. This thesis argues that crisis in southern West Virginia’s coalfields, like previous crises, will mean the reorganization of human and extra-human natures in which social movements along with economic conditions play an integral role in transcending the crisis. Tracing the history of crises in southern West Virginia’s coalfields and interviewing retired coal miners, community members, and environmental activists I examine how the current crisis is different than previous crises. Utilizing James O’Connor’s theory of second contradiction of capitalism and Jason Moore’s world-ecological perspective, I geographically and historically situate a case study of southern West Virginia’s coalfields with the intention of bridging large- scale theories and empirical studies. I conclude that large-scale theories such as these can better help understand the complexity of local crises that informs broader understandings of the ways in which capitalism emerges and develops through crisis. Battle for the Mountains: Restructuring Extractive Production and the Socio-ecological Crisis in West Virginia’s Coalfields By Ben Marley B.A. Syracuse University, 2008 Master’s Thesis Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Geography in the Graduate School of Syracuse University August 2013 © 2013 Ben Marley All Rights Reserved Table of Contents Introduction: ‘Overmining’ and ‘Undermining’ West Virginia’s Coal Communities ........... 1 Chapter 2: Theories of Crises and Resource-Dependent Communities ................................... 20 Chapter 3 The Making of West Virginia’s Coal Economy .......................................................... 46 Chapter 4: Contours of the Socio-Ecological Crisis: Labor, Community, and the Natural Environment ........................................................................................................................................... 73 Chapter 5: The End of Mountaintop Removal Mining? Mediating the Socio-Ecological Crisis and Beyond ................................................................................................................................. 93 Conclusion: Socio-Ecology and Future Research ....................................................................... 119 Works Cited: ....................................................................................................................................... 132 Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................................... 143 iv List of Figures Figure 1.1 Map of West Virginia .................................................................................................... 3 Figure 1.2 Nationwide UMWA Membership ............................................................................... 11 Figure 3.1 U.S. Coal Producing States ......................................................................................... 60 Figure 3.2 Types of Coal Found in the United States ................................................................... 61 Figure 3.3 Operating Costs by Region for Arch Coal .................................................................. 62 Figure 4.1 History of U.S. Coal Production (tons) ....................................................................... 75 Figure 5.1 Central Appalachian Coal Production ....................................................................... 110 Figure 5.2 Electricity: Coal versus Natural Gas ......................................................................... 111 Figure 5.3 Health Issues of MTR and Non-MTR West Virginia Counties ................................ 116 v 1 Coal has always cursed the land in which it lies. When men begin to wrest it from the earth it leaves a legacy of foul streams, hideous slag heaps and polluted air. It peoples this transformed land with blind and crippled men and with widows and orphans. It is an extractive industry which takes all away and restores nothing. It mars but never beautifies. It corrupts but never purifies. ...the curse of coal [is] a crown of sorrow. -Harry Caudill, 1963 Introduction: ‘Overmining’ and ‘Undermining’ West Virginia’s Coal Communities Two summers ago, under the blazing sun, West Virginians of multiple-stripes gathered together in hopes of challenging the West Virginia Coal Association and Alpha Natural Resources desire to mine Blair Mountain. In a weeklong procession environmentalists from Coal River Mountain Watch, Radical Action for Mountain Peoples Survival (RAMPS), Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC), union supporters, and historians marched single-file along the winding roads of southern West Virginia dodging rumbling coal trucks and enduring verbal abuse from company men and mountaintop removal (MTR) supporters. Police officers surrounded the scene, raising tensions between those seeking to save and those seeking to mine Blair Mountain. The 2011 March on Blair Mountain was organized as an attempt by a range of social movements to save Blair Mountain, a historic labor site, from the decimation of yet another mountaintop removal operation. The outcome of the march was forced removal of activists, multiple arrests, and a temporary moratorium on the mining of Blair Mountain. Recently a judge announced that Blair Mountain would be ineligible for status on the national registry of historic places that would preserve the historical and cultural landmark of the struggle for coal miners to unionize. This event, and other key moments such as the War on Coal and the emergence of hydro-fracking, is telling for the current socio-ecological crisis and prospects for what the future holds for the coalfields of southern West Virginia. These moments coalesce 2 around multiple forms of crises of coal operating at different scales that illuminate the way social relations are constituted in and through regional and global capitalism. The story of the crisis in the coalfields of southern West Virginia is the story of the historical restructuring of the coal industry that contributed to the contemporary socio-ecological crisis, and the potential for social movements developing out of this crisis to mediate and resolve the current state of the conditions of production. The following study examines the origins of the contemporary economic and ecological (or what I refer to as socio-ecological) crises in the coalfields of southern West Virginia through qualitative interviews with coal miners, environmentalists, and community members. Using data from in-depth open-ended interviews, I argue that the restructuring of the coal industry and the subsequent changes in the relations and forces of production have contributed to the contemporary socio-ecological crisis. Furthermore, the study seeks to grasp the characteristics constituting the socio-ecological crisis, detailing the more explicit contours and contradictions of capitalist production. Interviewees frequently related stories of their experiences of the destructive impacts of the coal industry and their communities’ contentious relations with the coal industry over a span of thirty years. Lastly, the thesis examines the potential for anti- mountaintop removal (MTR) groups and community movements to influence the resolution of crisis in the coalfields. 1 1 Anti-MTR and community movements are not mutually exclusive and there is a great deal of overlap between the two movements. 3 Figure 1.1 Map of West Virginia 2 Beginning with James O’Connor’s second contradiction of capitalism, this thesis utilizes economic and ecological insights to the ways in which capitalism produces certain types of outcomes and how those outcomes constitute crises and conflict. In particular, I focus on how 2 Source: Aurora Lights, http://auroralights.org/map_project/theme.php?theme=wind&article=7 . Although all but two counties in West Virginia contain coal, southern West Virginia is the most active mining region in the state, utilizing underground and surface mining. Much of the study, but not exclusively, focuses on Mingo County, Boone County, and Logan County. 4 MTR mining has undermined what O’Connor calls the conditions of production: labor, community, and the physical environment. This form of mining hinders the social reproduction of the regional political ecology generating