Coal Trip Day 6- Journey to the center of the earth or at least a little ways under Wayne County

Six days ago I made up my mind that I would not be going into a coal mine on this WV Coal Project  trip.  I had several good reasons not the least of which was that I have never been a fan of closed in spaces or the dark, but all reasoning led me to the conclusion that going in the mine was unnecessary.  I believed that I  had seen all I needed to see on television.  As the week progressed each new experience I had led me to uncover my own misconceptions about mining and its importance in WV, the reclaiming and repurposing of land, coal miners themselves, and even teaching science and incorporating other subject areas in that teaching.  If I was wrong about these things maybe I was wrong about going in the coal mine.  So today I went in, and I was right... that I was wrong...again.  Going into the mine today allowed me to meet a great bunch of men who were very proud of the work they were doing.  These men were eager to share their knowledge and appreciative of our interest in their work and our commitment to sharing our new found knowledge about this industry with the children that we teach.  Their comradery and dedication to each others safety was palpable.  The electric went off in the mine 10 minutes after we reached the face and a piece of top fell close by and nearly scared the paper pants off of me but I had a great experience.  I can not wait to share with my students all that I discovered in that mine today.

Day 5- Seeing is believing

Today I was afforded the opportunity to tour mining areas that had been repurposed and mining areas that have been reclaimed.  The repurposed mines were transformed into a shopping center and an airport. Both of these businesses would most likely have been impossible due to topography or lack of flat land.  The repurposing of land that had been leveled as a result of the mining operations has  and will continue to benefit the economy of the community in many ways.
To visit the reclaimed areas we went onto property owned by the CoalMac coal mining company.  This company specializes in surface mining operations including mountaintop removal.  I had my own ideas about surface mining or I should say I had some ideas that I had half heartedly committed to as a result of media exposure. The first few minutes of the tour of the mining area did little to dispell  these ideas.  Mountain top removal was as ugly this day
as any other time I had seen it, but then we saw the bird and then we saw the meadow full of different types of plants that held all kinds of insects that scattered as we waled to the edge.  From the edge of this meadow and in several more places as the day progressed I would witness land teaming with biodiversity and successful succession. The same coal company which had removed all traces of life as they extracted coal had gone back with forethought and purpose to bring back life to the land.  Life that would draw more life and continue as if uninterrupted.  This was not what I had seen on the news, but this what I have seen with my own eyes.  What I have seen with my own eyes I will tell others including future students they must see for themselves.  Telling them will not be enough although I will tell.  My plan is to encourage and support their own explorations so that they may weigh the evidence and come to their own conclusions.

Day 4- coal time travel

Today I was given the chance to look into the past and the future of coal in West Virginia. The  history found in the Coal Exhibition Mine www.beckley.org/exh was wonderfully enhanced by the richness of our guide's story telling ability and the sound of his West Virginian dialect.  You really got a sense of the courage and dedication  it must have required for the workers to have crawled into that mine on a daily basis.  I don't believe for a second that these men worked the mine out of dispare or lack of opportunity. They could have walked away or found something easier but I believe they were dedicated to their families, their fellow workers,  and there was a sense of pride in the work that they were doing.  Even Marvin, our guide, responded with that same sense of accomplishment in his voice when he said " I was in the mines for 24 years."         
Touring the coal mining camp was one of the highlights of the trip.  Seeing how the miners and their families lived, being in rooms that they walked in with things they possibly touched really brought allowed me to
paint a picture in my head of what their life may have been like.  However, being a sceptic I believe I saw the best examples of a coal camp minus the layers of coal dust that must have covered everything and I still cling to images of extreme poverty that I previously thought existed everywhere in all coal camps.
From the past to the future of coal in our time travel adventure, our next stop was a company that manufactures highwall mining equipment.  This company creates these multimillion dollar machines in West Virginia and ships them all over the world. The use of  exclusive technology as well as the pride in workmanship displayed by this company certainly carries on the heritage of coal mining in West Virginia. My chief concern with the innovative technology is loss of jobs for workers since this equipment requires fewer operators.

Coal Trip Day 3-

Lots of rain this morning did not make for a great trip on top of Joe Knob but the rain did allow us to see the effects of runoff in the mining area as we moved up the hill. You could see the rain pouring off the steep hills of  rock and dirt that were continuously being fed by the dump trucks. At one point the water was spewing out of a hole in the side of one of the mounds.   Mountain top removal is as ugly up close as it has always looked in the media and textbooks.  Moving past this area we moved upward toward an area of reclamation.  Comparing it to what was seen previously along yellow creek, there were marked differences.  It was covered all over with the same types of grasses, but there was an area of rows of poplar trees that looked obviously placed or contrived--just not natural.  Gone was the diversity we had seen in the yellow creek area. It was just the same plants over and over except for the occasional "poop tree or poop bush" whose seed would have been placed by a bird or other animal.  Mike Little told an interesting story about a similar situation in which a man gave free pigs to people if they agreed to drive them into the woods daily.  The result was the deposition of fig trees in the area and the implantation of a rainforest in the area.  This is the type of forethought and planning that needs to go into reclamation efforts. Going a little farther on our rain drenched trek, the diversity seemed to increase.  I am assuming that the areas with the greatest diversity had been planted earlier.  This was looking pretty good until we were told that this area would be remined for coal that had been left behind the first time thru and now technology had made its removal profitable.  I was ready to be royally outraged at these repeat rapist of the land until Mike Little gently reminded me that this remining effort was made possible by my insatiable need for instantaneous air conditioning, hot water, and a plethera of other selfish needs that I personally hold dear.
Later in the day we were in Nuttalburg where there was again an enormous amount of diversity among the plants and trees.  It is hard to believe that that reclamation all happened naturally, and looks as if it is moving at a much quicker pace  towards what it was originally. Meanwhile the Joe Knob area with man's "helping hand" lags  far behind the natural reclamation of the Nuttalburg area. However, the Joe Knob reclamation area is a far cry from the waste land of what was at the bottom of the hill in the form of the surface mining taking place.  We are at least trying now to reclaim this land, but how long will it take for us to improve this process  or educate ourselves  so that we each accept personal responsibilty for what has occured and change focus from wants to needs?

Diverse species in bog area of Yellow Creek

Day 2 continued

Visiting the coke ovens and actually standing inside of them was very interesting.  The glaze that covered the brick on the inside evidence of the intense heat needed to "burn" the coal and the small hole the only opening depriving the process of oxygen so that the coke or compressed coal would form--quite ingenious.  I wonder if the beehive coke oven was the only shape used in this process or just the most efficent?????

Testing the waters of the yellow river was also very enlightening.  Our group tested the water discolored by the bacteria that changes the pyrite present in this coal mining area to an acid and found the water to be much more acidic than the water in the main stream which lacked the brownish color and thus lacked the bacteria in such great quantities.  It is so hard to believe that this beautifully moving water that should be teaming with life is barren of the trout and other fish that would normally frequent a stream that moves like this. It seems like such a waste even though it did appear beautiful. 

Coal Trip--Day 2

Today we started with a trip to the yellow creek area to take some water samples.  Our group tested the water in a vernal pool in a bog.  I have never been in a bog before and while I did expect to be spongy, I was still amazed to see our guides leg disappear into the ground as he attempted to gather our water sample out of the pool.  The water was acidic but we later learned that this was not due to presence of pyrite in the mining area.  There is still some question in my head as to whether the water here is acidic from some other source and that acidity has dictated the plant life here or has the plant life caused the acidity of the water in the pool?  I need to clear this question up as it has puzzled me all day.  In any case there is no denying that the acidity of the water in this bog does dictate the plant life.  The bog is bordered quite clearly by ferns all along the edge and then the ground of the bog is covered by thick sphagnum moss interspaced with many low lying plants.  We saw sundew plants, blueberries, and other mosses and lichens covering the ground.  All of this, as I understand it, is nature reclaiming this area after mining ceased in 1906.  In a little over 100 years nature has begun to rebuild what man destroyed in about 25 years.  If man stepped in now to try and "fix" the acidity of the water it would destroy the plants that have adapted to this and we would lose this newly formed ecosystem.