This article originally provided by The Charleston Gazette

February 17, 2008

Make West Virginia protected from coal

Editor:

I worry about the image of our state held by opinion leaders in the rest of the United States, those who are contemplating where to locate elements of the new high-tech and information economy. Since October in the New York Times Sunday Book Review they've read about Ann Pancake's novel "Strange as This Weather Has Been" and Michael Shnayerson's nonfiction study "Coal River," both highlighting the pollution caused by valley fills and coal slurry impoundments.

A series of video reports and pictures in news journals have left Americans with an image of West Virginia not as a place of beautiful ranges and homesteads, but as the locus of mountains scraped away and of a school located below towering silos and an even more towering impoundment dam.

If I'm correct, the recent West Virginia Senate subcommittee decision to cut the list of streams receiving tier 2.5 protection from 309 to 108 will further undermine West Virginia being viewed as "Wild and Wonderful" by those outside this state.

I do pray that the Legislature will retain the full DEP tier 2.5 protection list and keep our state "Almost Heaven."

Brian O'Donnell, S.J.
Executive secretary
Catholic Conference of West Virginia
Charleston