This LTE originally provided by The Register-Herald

October 7, 2007

Marsh Fork needs new school away from silo

Last week Kanawha County Judge Duke Bloom upheld a decision of the West Virginia Surface Mine Board, which had overturned a Department of Environmental Protection decision to block the construction of a second silo at Goals Coal behind Marsh Fork Elementary.

The DEP was unable to grant the permit because the Surface Mine and Reclamation Act prohibits them from permitting the silo. The federal law clearly states coal operations cannot be within 300 feet of a school building. Massey’s permits show the second silo is within 300 feet.

He who shall not be named stated the second silo would improve the environment. How can that be true when Massey’s own paperwork says the silo could emit up to three extra tons of coal dust behind the school annually?

If there are administrators or teachers at the school who can’t see the coal dust, that’s even more troublesome. It is the coal dust undetectable by the eye, microscopic coal dust, that is the most detrimental to health. In a test conducted last winter by doctors Simonton and Sanderson of Marshall University, all seven samples of dust collected in the school contained coal dust. Dr. Simonton currently sits on the Governor’s Environmental Quality Board.

If no jobs are in danger, if the children will not experience long bus rides to another community, if everybody can keep their jobs, their lifestyle, why not have a new clean school in our own neighborhood? Why not put our differences aside and work for one goal? I don’t want to have to look one of these children in the face in the future and think I could have made a difference if I had been willing to come to the table and talk.

We can fight and argue later.

Lorelei Scarbro
Rock Creek