Regulators are wrangling with bankrupt coal companies to set aside enough money to clean up Appalachia’s polluted rivers and mountains so that taxpayers are not stuck with the $1 billion bill.
The regulators worry that coal companies will use the bankruptcy courts to pay off their debts to banks and hedge funds, while leaving behind some of their environmental cleanup obligations.
The industry asserts that its cleanup plans — which include turning defunct mines back into countryside — are comprehensive and well funded. But some officials say those plans could prove unrealistic and falter as demand for coal remains weak.
The latest battle is over Alpha Natural Resources, once a high-flying coal company that borrowed hundreds of millions when the coal market was booming but imploded in the face of competition from cheaper natural gas and tougher environmental regulations.
West Virginia faces perhaps the greatest fallout from the flood of coal bankruptcies that have hit the courts in the last year because many of its mines are scheduled to close and will require extensive cleanup. The state took the unusual approach of hiring a seasoned bankruptcy lawyer from New York who grew up in West Virginia to represent its Department of Environmental Protection in the Alpha case.
If you want to know how firm a grip coal has on WV, remember that they just tried to give massive tax cuts to the coal industry while they can’t balance the budget. Hell, the wingnut Republicans who took over are so incompetent they can’t even file a bill so the governor can veto it.
catclub
Remember when we were told that Exxon was not an oil company but an ENERGY company? Likewise with coal companies being energy companies. Good times.
CONGRATULATIONS!
The tragedy that is America and the working man has nowhere been written as clearly as it has in WV. I don’t know how you fix your state, John. It breaks my heart.
winnief
Being from Pennsylvania I know something of West Virginia’s pain but we’re not on nearly the same scale.
cmorenc
The coal company’s impact “cleanup/restoration fund” set-asides should have been required to be to separate accounts legally insulated from being subject to invasion by either bankruptcy court creditors or the coal company’s own ability to borrow-back or otherwise divert them in any form from intended purpose. This problem is but a variation on the ability by corporations or Bain-type acquisition/spinoff type raiders from being able to siphon off worker pension funds. When the North Dakota oil/fracking boom is exhausted, there will likely be the same scenario that’s playing out in the WVa coal fields – manipulation of corporate shells such that the legally responsible entities have been effectively mined of financial assets, leaving the state and local communities holding the bag while the money is long gone via corporate and financial-instrument shell games to big investors elsewhere.
Keith P.
You had me at “A depressing reminder”…
oz29
@cmorenc: Yup.
Punchy
From that link, it appears that WV still has a “rainy day fund”. Count yourself lucky — KS blew through their $700 million fund in 2 years.
And now the KS legy is poised to ignore a State Supreme Court directive to fix the school funding. Rule of lawlessness, bitches; IOKIYAR.
Major Major Major Major
@catclub: Remember BP: Beyond Petroleum?
amygdala
I spent an idyllic few days driving around your beautiful state 25 years or so ago, while on a long road trip. So tourism has always struck me as a feasible part of a solid economy for West Virginia, but in the interest of diversification, there need to be other industries. With coal on its way out, what would/should those industries be? I’m curious what a lifelong West Virginian thinks is the way forward (besides showing your state officials the door).
oz29
@cmorenc: What I find particularly galling is that it is now 15 years since West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, and West Virginia has done next to nothing about the “climate of lawlessness” that has enabled Peabody, Consolidated, Arch, and the rest to ignore SMCRA because they know WV regulators won’t look too closely at their books when they self-bond. But hey, coal that doesn’t get dug up doesn’t pay anything.
Gelfling545
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-federal-government-should-buy-coal-plants-shut-them-down-and-pay-to-retrain-their-employees/2016/06/03/eb08ebf4-0bdd-11e6-8ab8-9ad050f76d7d_story.html
I have no idea if this would actually be workable or even a good thing to do but I would be interested to hear what people think.
gindy51
@Major Major Major Major: “We’re sorry” The South Park spoof was spot on…
jonas
No matter how horrible the coal companies are, no matter how many miners die or how many mountain tops are removed and watersheds destroyed, folks in Appalachia will still stand by them and blame Obama instead. It’s like they suffer from some kind of collective battered women’s syndrome.
? Martin
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
The first step to getting help is not fighting the people trying to help you. That’s something we fail at quite regularly as a nation.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
How fucking many times do coal companies have to fuck over the people who work for them before they (those who work for them and get fucked over) make up their minds that they’ve had enough? That’s the thing I cannot fathom. Coal companies have been fucking West Virginians for 100 years now, and it seems like nothing they do will turn the people away from them. Shit, even shooting miners hasn’t done it.
The Other Chuck
This taxpayer is fine with picking up the bill to clean up the mining mess, as long as that translates into a massive public works investment in the region. Appalachia seems like a place where some infrastructure spending could do a lot of good.
Still, I’d put the companies on the hook as much as possible for the actual cleanup part. Just declare them Superfund sites and the rest is well established process.
gene108
@Punchy:
Not IOKIYAR, but a smart political move for any legislator with ambitions on higher office.
Huckabee complied was with an Arkansas State Supreme Court ruling to fix education funding. Ole’ Huckabee did it with a small tax increase.
The Club for Growth, figuratively, cut his nuts off, in 2008 Presidential race because of the tax increase effectively killing his campaign.
And Huckabee was all ready to set the narrative of being a politician, who improved public education and cared about the middle class.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Shit. I put in the wrong link… Here’s the right one.
The Other Chuck
@jonas:
aka Stockholm Syndrome. But that’s a little too reductive: start with the culture there, which is always going to trend conservative, then move on to the blanket dismissal of that culture and people as hillbillies by everyone outside of Appalachia. Now pivot to the one entity that actually provides an honest living in the area. I don’t agree with where the collective attitude in WV ends up, but I can certainly understand how it got there.
? Martin
Third call this morning from the Sanders campaign trying to drum up volunteers. They were very nice, but seems a bit late in the game to be getting volunteers.
Mary G
I’ve never been to West Virginia, but what I have seen through the eyes of this blog is so bloody beautiful and stupid it breaks my heart. Those miners who stood in the photo op with Mitt Romney in 2012 without even being paid for their time were almost classical Stockholm Syndrome sufferers. Nothing will change unless people like them stand up to bullies like Blankenship. Having relatives in Kentucky gives me some idea of how stubborn people can be. I hope the rise of Bernie and Trump signal that society is at least moving in another direction, even if it’s not a good one.
piratedan
@amygdala: depending upon how it’s managed, I could see where forestry could even make a come back. Usually WVa is spared from drought due to it’s rugged terrain, if managed properly, perhaps that could be considered. I agree that making it a tourist destination for hiking, water sports, kayaking, fishing makes a lot of sense. The challenge is making sure the infrastructure exists to get the folks from the east coast and the midwest there and giving them places to stay.
Mike J
@? Martin:
For a second I thought you worked for the Times:
Curt
Not to threadjack, but you guys, check out this absolutely brutal anti-Trump ad that just rolled out:
http://theresurgent.com/the-democrat-air-war-against-trump-begins-today-with-this/
? Martin
@The Other Chuck: What choice do they have? What other jobs are in the area? What other jobs has the state invested in? That’s the problem with doubling down on things that are obvious dead-ends – you refuse to acknowledge the opportunity costs of your actions, and wind up with neither the thing you wanted nor the next best alternative. See today’s GOP.
And coal is hardly unique in this regard. This is what I’ve been trying to say about manufacturing in general. Demanding manufacturing jobs is akin to demanding coal jobs. It’s a dead-end. Find an alternative with a better future, like service jobs, and demand those instead.
Woodrowfan
no, Virginia does not want it back. The last thing we need is more Republican voters. thank you though. You do have our sympathies.
? Martin
@Mike J: No, they were very nice, but I’m not a registered Democrat, so the fact that they called asking me to volunteer is telling. They did call the registered Democrats in my house first. I remain NPP for two reasons:
1) I would greatly like to see a better process than a two party system, even if I do almost exclusively vote Democratic
2) It really, really, really cuts down on the mail and phone calls
eric
@Gelfling545: I have come around to the view that the Military Industrial Complex, while dangerous and destabilizing in the hands of a nut (see Trump, Donald) is actually the only truly acceptable large-scale keynsian spending program. As a liberal, I long wanted the military budget cut and that money spent on other priorities, but the spending on other (liberal) priorities would never materialize. So, I have come around that the military should be the testing ground for more liberal policies, such as assistance with mortgage workouts and college debt. it is not socialism to do good things for the workers that are the armed services, and then expand those programs outward once they work. (This is why we must fight so hard not to privatize the VA.) So, my solution is somehow expanding the military industrial complex with the worker protections we would want to see in the work force writ large.
eric
@Curt: WOW. give that copy writer a raise.
oz29
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I don’t know about WV as a whole, but at least in the southern coalfields (McDowell, Mingo, Logan, Boone, Wyoming) you have to keep in mind that the coal companies were the whole game. They controlled everything. Their most devastating legacy grew from 50 years of aggressively blocking any industrial development that did not directly support coal extraction. They created a more-or-less distinct culture that existed solely to provide labor for the mines.
John Cole
@Woodrowfan: I don’t want to be part of Virginia, fuck you very much.
Roger Moore
@cmorenc:
That would have driven up the price of coal enough that the mines would have gone out of business a long time ago. Though I suppose to be consistent, we should have done the same thing for oil and gas, which would have made them more expensive, too. Letting extraction industries destroy the environment is a huge implicit subsidy, even when you ignore AGW.
Wapiti
@eric: I think that during the Depression the Army provided at least some of the cadres for the WPA; I remember reading about some Engineer lieutenant who had additional duties that expanded to running a 500 man WPA encampment and a section of railroad line. I think they might have been building dams for Bureau of Land Management.
amygdala
@piratedan: Interesting, thanks. I’m a city slicker, but maybe it’s for being a Californian that the riotous green of all those trees blew me away enough that I didn’t whine (much) about the humidity. Pine forests are beautiful, but different than deciduous trees as far as the eye can see.
Forestry can mean stable federal and private sector jobs. I wonder if there might be possibilities for biotech or similar industries around the university. Total reliance on extraction industries has one set of problems, as does depending a lot on tourism.
I’ve never been to Pittsburg and have been thinking I should visit one of these days, with a side trip to West Virginia.
Trollhattan
Having worked in environmental engineering fifteen years I can verify what every sane person assumes: it’s vastly cheaper to prevent pollution and other types of environmental degradation than it is to clean it up. Orders of magnitude cheaper. Plus, environmental “restoration” to conditions similar to what existed before is often impossible.
Many of our leadery types don’t acknowledge any of this and anybody whose income depends on extraction has to actively pretend it’s not true and also, too, doesn’t matter, because America! (And Canada and Australia lately.)
CONGRATULATIONS!
@? Martin: I went there when Bush was in office thinking, mistakenly, that the GOP would follow CA’s open primary law and, well, open their primaries. They still refuse to do so.
My wife’s done it so simply as to not be a target. She’s a state employee and there’s some kind of fucked up “open secrets” law here in CA that publishes our address, phone, her income (including benefits and health insurance) and party affiliation, and people use it to harass the shit out of state employees, especially Democrats.
oz29
Marsh Fork Elementary will probably be fine. Those guys from Massey seem like they’re on top of shit.
The Thin Black Duke
@Curt: The ads write themselves, don’t they? For the Democratic party, Trump is going to be the gift that keeps on giving.
boatboy_srq
@John Cole: Considering that Virginia circa 2016 seems to be three parts MILInd Galtistan and two parts FRC/NRA hell (or is it the other way around?), I don’t blame you. About 15 miles west of me the population seems to split evenly between the Teahadi Drumpfsters whinging incessantly about VA’s “high taxes” (ROFLMAO) and “excessive regulation” (BWAHAHAHA) and how they’re going to move to WV where things are more to their liking – and the folks whinging about all the Trumptards who’ve moved to WV (Charles Town and Harper’s Ferry to be precise) and are now driving back into VA to live and work (and clogging the roads and taking all the parking spaces). And I’m just barely outside the Beltway, so not that far west.
RobertB
@amygdala: There have been efforts dating from at least the mid-80’s to bootstrap hi-tech (their term) industries, with mixed success at best. I got the impression that it was, “throw money at the wall and see if it sticks,” rather than a coherent plan.
My $0.02 is that they’d need a specialty to focus on. Geriatric medicine, renewable energy, internet porn, whatever. Something that isn’t going away anytime soon, and doesn’t finish the job on the environment that digging coal started. Local universities would specialize in this, and businesses would have strong financial incentives to locate or relocate there. Get enough expertise in education, research, and businesses there to make it the answer to the question, “where do I go to get X, or do X.”
It’s definitely easier said than done, but the alternative is, “leave until the people left equal the number of jobs”. I wish they could fix it; I grew up there, and miss the hills. But there weren’t many jobs when I left 30 years ago, and nothing’s convinced me that it’s changed much since then, except that today the coal industry is dying.
Juju
@amygdala: I’m not from West Virginia, but I know some of their other remaining industries revolve around artisanal glass manufacturing, pottery and dishware manufacturing. There used to be so many glass blowing companies, such as Blenko, West Virginia Glass and Pilgrim Glass, and many others, but I believe Blenko is the only glass company still in business. Fiestaware is also in West Virginia, as well as many other independent potters. If you ever get a chance, go visit Blenko or at least stop at Tamarack. It breaks my heart that so many of the glass blowing companies went under, especially Pilgrim Glass. I wish West Virginia would pursue some of their older manufacturing skills again.
boatboy_srq
@Trollhattan: Agreed. Not to mention the army of “scientists” whose livelihood depends on surveying polluted spaces and designing the cleanup. Google “Hunters Point HPALs” for an example of the idiocy involved.
Chip Daniels
Remember this next time your Facebook wingnut friend goes on about giving away stuff to freeloaders; The coal companies, like most other corporations, beg for handouts to fund their operations, then walk away and let the taxpayer clean up their mess.
This is just Obamaphones for the 0.1%
The Other Chuck
@Chip Daniels: When have actual facts ever changed a wingnut’s mind? They’ll just move the goalposts and squirt out whatever squid ink about emails and arglebenghazibargle. It’s only worth engaging people who actually care to debate in good faith.
ruemara
@jonas: Pretty sure that’s a case of virulent economic uncertainty.
amygdala
RobertB & Juju: Thank you both. Glass fascinates me, and I just put Blenko and Tamarack in my travel file.
J R in WV
@amygdala: Pittsburgh (it does have an “H” on the end) is a great small city to visit. I think I like it because there are hills and rivers, kind of the best of both worlds to me.
Blenko is just a few miles from us – you can visit their “factory” which is more like a big studio, and watch them blowing glass. The one day they’re working each week, IIRC. They are just off I-64 near Milton WV. The late founder Mr Blenko is kind of a bit player in labor history, a friend of Debs, his ashes were scattered on Debs’ grave. There is a little museum, too, as well as art glass for sale.
Their work is great, including making historic glass plates for restoration of historic buildings, like the White House. I think the bulletproof glass is inside the historic glass, but I’m just guessing.
I don’t have a clue what WV can do past tourism. They’re trying to attract business to flat places the strip mine industry was able to abandon by calling it “development land” instead of restoring it to the “approximate original contour.” So far an ammunition plant is all I’ve heard of, and that will be automated, mostly.
Trollhattan
@J R in WV:
Maybe you, JC or others in the region can vouch for/comment on iLoveMountains.org.They’re community organizers against mountaintop removal– I’ve been on their mailing list for a few years out of personal interest, if from three time zones away. Their site has this tool for viewing and tracking active mining sites. Considering the population dispersion across Appalachia, it’s ghoulish to consider the fact that folks live near each site. it’s not as though they’re strip-mining Yukon Territory or somewhere sparsely populated.
Woodrowfan
@John Cole: you sure? you’re missing out on all that great traffic!!!!!
Woodrowfan
@boatboy_srq: you forget the northern tip. i.e. Virginia’s wallet. and the only thing that keeps Virginia from being another red state hell hole.
boatboy_srq
@Woodrowfan: um [cough] that’s where I am, that’s spitting distance from the Galtists and the whingers. It’s not quite the blue haven most people think, though it’s not the same ruby-red environment that Lynchburg is.
Woodrowfan
@boatboy_srq: I’m here too. Look at the elections results for Fairfax County since 1980. It’s getting bluer and bluer.