West Virginia woman wins the goldman environmental prize

Maria Gunnoe, a 40-year-old West Virginian, is a winner of this year's Goldman Prize for Environmental Activism, for taking on powerful American coal mining companies.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• WEB
• USA
• ENVIRONMENT
• MINES
• COAL

[Zoth77]

The only way someone can watch this and agree with MTR is to discount this woman's life, her family's lives, and her home, and say that an efficient means of coal extraction is more important than her existence. If that's the country you want to live in, then I feel sorry for you!!

[wiscalia]

HERO



[Canoe571]

Maria, I respect your heritage, your nerve, backbone, dedication, and energy you put into what you are doing. Good for you! We need millions more just like you.

[coalvein]

@cardinalsboi22 Why would anybody want to put more people in an extremely unsafe environment when there are other alternatives to the industry? Pride? More jobs? Harder work that doesn't pay off after 20-30 years of labor? Look at WV's coal mining fatality history, more people have died from underground mine accidents than MTR. Yes, the earth ultimately will heal from MTR. What we are doing with surface mining really isn't even scratching the surface.

[coalvein]

@cardinalsboi22 Sure, we could abolish MTR & send more people underground into the mouth of danger, but why? Yes, underground mining is extremely destructive. A fine example is the long wall: A giant piece of underground machinery, 700 to 1,500 feet long. After the panels are cut out, however long they may be, the ground above that area will be unstable & settling for decades. Not to mention the streams, springs, creeks, & bodies of water that are diverted underground in the process.

[coalvein]

@cardinalsboi22 Don't forget about those impoundments either. Most strip coal can be shipped without being processed through a prep plant, depending on how skilled the loader operator is resulting in surface mine's have very few impoundments. No, deep mining cannot be done safely. We are at our limits for underground safety advancements right now. The best & easiest to get coal is no0 longer there & thus they have to go deeper into more danger to extract the coal making it more unsafe.

[nomountainsnofuture]

@dixiebobber now that an intelligent response...

[cardinalsboi22]

@coalvein Deep mines are not out of site out of mind. We have those tipples to remind us of that but deep mining doesnt destroy the forests. Mountains that have been blown up will never recover. Deep mining can be done safely if the coal industry is no longer allowed to run ramped and do with us as they please. MTR is useless, only 10% of the nations coal is MTR coal and the machines and explosives take away jobs.

[coalvein]

@cardinalsboi22 I live approximately 2 miles from an active surface mine, though not a huge mine. I get to hear the blast's monday through friday & occasionally on saturday's. It is comforting to know that there are people on that mine making a safe living mining coal & not going back underground in extreme amounts of danger. They gut the mountains too, from the inside out but I guess since it's out of site it's out of mind.