The column in Friday’s Kernel, “Coal mining industry given bad reputation, actually restores land,” had a sickening effect on me as a reader. I am sure that the author of this piece is very well informed on the technique and process of mining both above and below surface as a senior in the mining engineering department, and I won’t claim to know even a tenth of what he may know about being a coal mining “engineer,” but I very strongly and resolutely claim that unless he is lying about what he honestly believes, I know far greater the effects of coal mining on the beautiful environment and ecology of Kentucky’s Appalachian mountains.

I live in Clay County within a five-mile proximity to several underground mines and “reclaimed” mountaintops. Back home, we don’t call these used mountains “reclaimed,” we just call them exactly what they still look like, “strip mines.” Perhaps Joe White (and the supporters of surface mining in Kentucky) like their “mountains” flat and sparsely covered with gravel, grass and miscellaneous shrubs … I prefer them, well, mountainous. “Reclaimed” surface mines in Clay County are barren, unnatural and completely uninhabited by the “growth and commerce” mentioned by White (unless, of course, you count the regular drug deals that take place on these “quality” plots of land).

White’s sources that state  streams filled with coal slurry are no different or more dangerous than Kentucky’s natural clean spring must not have  been in my neck of the woods, where the water runs rusty orange and parents are afraid to let their children play in or around the water for fear of sickness. No, wait, those must just be the after-effects of natural “uptake of stream sediments.” The coal companies would never lie to the people of Kentucky; their track record is too “clean.” In my opinion, to think that coal companies are “accountable to save the environment,” and that they take this responsibility seriously is ignorant and uninformed.

Like the author of this column, I also challenge you to educate yourself by listening to the coal mining debates going on in Kentucky. However, I challenge White to visit Clay County and, after seeing the effects of mining on my home, write an article like this again with a “clean” conscience.

Ezra Jack

English junior