Petition Filed to Declare Blair Mountain Unsuitable for Mining

Derek Teaney of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and Environment has filed an application to have Blair Mountain declared unsuitable for mining. It is located on the DEP website here.  Blair Mountain has been in the news recently as the destination of a group of marchers who want to preserve  it as a memorial to those miners who fought in the Battle of Blair Mountain.  While there are no doubt some who want to preserve the mountain for its historical significance, it's likely that the Sierra Club, OVEC and others on whose behalf the petition is filed are looking for a high profile opportunity to oppose mountaintop mining.

It was surprising to note that, while the Battle is an important point in labor history in the Mountain State that is often cited by the UMWA,  it was  a setback for  union organizers.  The application contains a report on the history of the fight, with this passage:

In the aftermath of the insurrection, the UMW was severely weakened in West Virginia. Coal
operators and the state of West Virginia felt they could deal a deathblow to the union, and they took advantage of the situation (Blizzard 2004: 288). Leaders of the strike were tried on charges of treason against the state, and the lengthy trial drained the UMW’s funds (Blizzard 2004: 300). By the end of the 1920s only 512 union miners remained in West Virginia, a drop that was part of an overall nationwide decline in labor (Blizzard 2004: 343). But after the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933, the southern coalfields rapidly organized and became a stronghold of union working class culture throughout the twentieth century.

We're better off with a country where people are free to organize, whether it be unions, environmental groups, or businesses.  And a society should preserve places of significant historical, cultural and natural significance. Those who place that value on the property should demonstrate that by raising the money to buy it, rather than deprive the owner of its right to use the property.   If the marchers want to stop development of Blair Mountain, let them pay fair market value for the property, or get the state or federal government to do it and place it in the park system, rather than use the "unsuitable for mining" process to deny Arch Coal the ability to develop the property.