Sylvia Weekley's family has lived here, in Pigeon Roost hollow, for so many decades that the 84-year-old matriarch no longer recalls precisely when her ancestors first arrived.
Like other hollows tucked into the folds of southern West Virginia's mountains, Pigeon Roost is a lush and woody haven that appears much as it did centuries ago. A whispering creek, six feet wide in some places, passes close to Mrs. Weekley's front door. Her son, daughter-in-law and a grandson live nearby.
It is a place largely untouched by time and technology. Until now.
For all its rustic charm, Pigeon Roost is about to be obliterated.
The hollow lies at the foot of two mountains whose tops will be blasted away by Arch Coal Inc., a mining company in search of the valuable low-sulfur coal that is abundant throughout the region and is sold all over the world as a major source of electricity. When the work begins, the hollow and the surrounding terrain will become become part of a 3,100-acre strip mine, the largest in the state's history.
In strip mining, mammoth machines remove coal from veins near the surface by stripping away the land and vegetation. In mountaintop strip mining, the remaining rock and earth are usually dumped down the mountain, burying hollows and streams.
Strip mining is hardly new to West Virginia and other coal-producing states. It was a hot environmental issue in the 1970's, when mining companies began using it as an alternative to underground mining, which is costlier and more dangerous. Because of the moonlike terrain it left behind, strip mining become so controversial that it led to Federal regulations intended to protect the land and waterways.
Mountaintop removal, a form of strip mining, is not new either. Over the last decade it has become favored by many mining companies as the most efficient strip mining, allowing them to remove coal faster and with fewer workers than in any other process because the coal generally lies close to the surface at higher elevations.
Recently, however, the debate over strip mining, which receded through the early 1990's, has been reinvigorated by a measure signed into law in April by Gov. Cecil H. Underwood, a Republican who is a former coal company executive. The law would allow companies to dump even more of the stripped earth into the hollows and waterways below the mining sites before they would have to compensate the state for the damage.
Companies say they need the law to lower costs. West Virginia has a stake, too. Coal production has always been a major source of employment and tax revenue in a state with few comparable options.
But the law has frightened residents of Pigeon Roost and places like it and has renewed bitter complaints that strip mining is an environmental disaster, destroying scenic vistas and a small-town way of life. They say the law is another in a long line of concessions to coal companies at the expense of the environment.
Fighting for Life 'We Hold So Dear'
Anger over Arch's pending operations in Blair, where mining has already driven out many families, led to a recent hearing where local residents and environmentalists expressed opposition to the magnitude of the operation.
''This is our culture, life in these small hollows,'' Patricia Bragg, a resident of Pigeon Creek, said in an interview. Pigeon Creek is in Mingo County, the state's leading coal-producing county.
''We know that the quality of life we hold so dear is weighed against progress of the country,'' Ms. Bragg added. ''But we're paying for that progress. People raise millions to save whales and walruses and birds, but the state doesn't lift a hand to save the most precious thing in the world, a person's way of life.''
The law has also touched off a dispute between state and Federal officials who disagree over whether West Virginia is doing an adequate job of protecting the environment. One local group has already notified the state's chief environmental officer that it intends to sue, contending that the state has violated the Federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. The law sets standards for granting permits, inspecting mines and reclaiming land damaged by the mining process.
The new state law increases to 480 acres from 250 the number of acres of valley waterways, like the creek running along Pigeon Roost hollow, that mining companies can bury before they have to compensate the state. Under the old regulation, the companies paid the state $200,000 for each acre of stream buried above 250 acres. Under the new law, they pay up to $225,000 per acre of stream buried after 480 acres.
Although residents have focused on this latest development, it is mountaintop strip mining itself that is at the core of the dispute. In mountaintop operations, workers use explosives to blast away rock so that giant machines can scoop out the coal. The process can take months.
It is only then that the companies, under requirements of the 1977 Federal act, begin their reclamation projects. Typically, tons of debris are placed at the head of the hollows, then contoured and seeded to approximate land and streams that were obliterated, and ponds are built to replace the creeks.