With a long history. How far back to that history go . Guest it goes back to my second greatgrandfather in the 1920s who worked in areas of virginia for the iron, coal, ane coke company. Host what you write about . Guest im speaking to some of the rhetoric that comes to both the industry and environmentalists to find Common Ground between the two. Speaking specifically to minor issues try and help give a voice and keep the bias out. At the same time working to get the truth out. What you do these sick days . How long did you serve in thet i minds . I worked in the Mining Industry for about four years. Spent three years underground. Decided to do that because there were not a lot of decent jobs in the area. My family had been through generations including my friends. I wanted to find something with a living wage. So i ended up in the coal mine. It was a good job and provided a lot of money to my family. I have to admit that. I it came with issues includingho health issues. Anybody who is worked in the mining and node anybody knows that is definitely a problem. Host what are the places you do not think the Mining Industry and environmentalists are speaking to and it comes to the discussion were having in the country about coal mining . Of guest it is the day to day life of coalminers. Listening to bob murray earlier speaking to the dignity and honor of the job, but they did not talk a lot about the health issues, the problems that we are having. It did not speak to the disabling injuries that minors have working in the mines. T. We definitely want to provide for our families, but at the same time we dont want to give up our health for its. Whatever environmentalists they had their hearts in the right place. Ng where mining does create environmental problems. I was witness to myself. We had a mountaintop moving job at it turned irish city water to a mine drainage. At the same time, there are economic implications. People in the industry who workk in the industry have to find a way to make a living. D. Especially in areas that are economically depressed. That has to come from the economy created by the coal industry. When we hear the term the green blue divide what is that mean . Guest essentially is a polarization between environmentalist and the working class. A lot of the jobs in this area do have environmental implications. Environmentalists want to protect that environment but people need jobs and they want to protect their jobs. There is a barrier between the two and is being created by the coal industry themselves. They want the environmentalist as job killers and theres no doubt theres been some regulations that have harmed the coal industrys bottom line. At the same time it is not exactly translated to what i would say are terrible impacts on mining families. Those are market shifts within the Natural Gas Industry and those are harder to control. Another part of this is washington d. C. What do you think washington d. C. Understands about theregu mining culture where you are . Well i dont believe they really understand what it is like to be a coalminer. To face the reality of having to go to work every day and provide for your family with no job alternatives in the region that would provide anywhere near the same amount of money and benefits. Also knowing that you would sacrifice your health and risking your life. That is not a choice any person in this country should make. I think representatives of washington fall short of that. You can check us out on the internet or give us a call hes with us to the end of theus program today joining us in c ohio. Mou can call in on one of our lines. Lets go to nancy who has been waiting in washington. Good morning. Caller hello. Thank you. It has been fascinating listening to you. I have a lot of questions for you. First of all, can you tell a what they are putting in the streams . Especially with the rollback of the regulation that trump rollback to keep clean water . Also what about retraining for a lot of these minors . Even just cleaning up if we close the coal mine in the power be plants could there not be cleanup jobs as well as other jobs they could be retrained for . I am all for people having honorable jobs that support their families. But at some point we have tor pn realize that our only home is at stake. Excellent questions. To address the first question some of the things going into the water is heavy metals. Any time you mind especially Surface Mining youre taking large chunks of mountains and rocks though normally be running through the next and crannies and not get a lot of heavy metals, your crushing them into a fine powder with a blessing. That makes it more soluble. You were leaking over minerals and selenium and heavy metals like arsenic. Whenever the money process occurs it adds oxygen to the sulfur compounds. That creates acidification of the water. That leaches out more heavy ming metals. In the money process itself you have various oils and chemicalsa that leak out of equipment. I saw my fair share of that leaking into the minds as we we work. In terms of retraining coal miners, there is definitely opportunities throughout appalachia to work and abandoned mine. All of these issues were seen with the water and poorprere reclamation projects and reclamation be the process of restoring the mountain and trying to prevent erosion after the mining process is completed and addressing the water issues that follow, theres many jobs and that most minors are trained to operate the machinery to do. Beyond that minors are very smart people. They have a lot of ingenuity. Ee you have electricians and repairmen who are very crafty, they could be retrained into other forms of mechanic amen repair and electrical work. Perhaps a fastpaced Electrical Program throughout the state. There are different optionssto there. Ear fr we need the funds to be able to fix the damage. His nancy is on the line calling in from georgia. The morning. Caller the morning. Was im a grandma and my grandfather was a coalminer and a crew of southwest virginia. Minin my son is a mining engineer. Host just keep talking please. Caller and mountaintop my name is really not mining and stripmining is different. Rground a dozen involved engineers are underground money. But i think that the bluegreen debacle im on the green side because i worked to protect then when he was little. We were successful in southwest virginia two. But mining is an abomination. There more explosives used in appalachia every month there were used in nagasaki and it is an abomination. It doesnt use engineers. Guest i would have to agree with that. Stripmining is an easier way ofg accessing coal. It is actually killing jobs. It doesnt take nearly as men or women to perform that job and run the large equipment and their paid less than underground mining. Underground mining requires mor. People and does pay more but it has issues as well. People who work in underground coal mines come away with health issues. They say 76000 people have died of black lung since 1960. Theyre starting to see increases in black lung issues even today were starting to see upticks in severe cases of black lung among the new generation coal miners. Comes down to pursing production. That is the coal industrysbs a game. As much as they want to say theyre here to provide jobs ann take care of the people, they are here to get the coal out of the ground and make a prophet off of it. They will try anyway and takedu shortcuts in terms of making that production increase. Lets head to west virginia. Good morning. Caller good morning. Howk you for taking my call. I do have to express how much i appreciate cspan. Hydraulic generators on locks and dams were primarily showing the coal temples on the higher river. All of these coal plants can be replaced with about 125 hydraulic generators. We already have locks and dams, just for generators in place. You dont have to burn any fuel whatsoever. Energy. There are definitely alternatives to energy. Ut we could put in hydroelectricree plants. There are many locks that could produce hydroelectric energy. That combined with another formh of energy which ive heard some people call the first fuel is energy efficiency. We can retire 70 these plants and institute Renewable Energy resources but the first thing we have to do is decrease baseload and that means becoming more Energy Efficient. We are lagging behind the rest of the world especiallyting i developed countries and putting into effect laws and regulations that would bring down the demand to begin with. Judy from maryland is on. D, m caller im sorry. Thank you for taking my call. I grew up in pennsylvania in 1944 with all of the coal in the 50s, we could no longer use 1950 we know it wasnt good for us. In the meantime i had four family members die from black lung who works or had worked in the coal mine. Ho and one who had died from alcoholism because he couldnt stand working in the mines. So anything we can do to get rid of the coal now we should be trying to do. I cant see why we continue to be doing that. I will take my answer of the. O l one of the things we have to realize and im terribly sorry to hear about your family members. I lost my greatgrandfather to black lung. I dont have a memory of him without oxygen concentrators around him. Cole has not been kind to appalachia. Lotta people want to say its been the economy and is here to help the people but i cannot believe that. Not seen what is happen to us. Theres been billions of coal mined in appalachia should and sold yet we remain some of the most economically distressed counties in the nation. It doesnt make sense. The profits in the amount ofpled coal that we use in this area doesnt translate back and helping the people. It doesnt translate back and helping the coal miners. There is evidence that john hopkins doctors are being paid by the coal industry to appeal black lung cases. That came out in 2013. There is always been pushback from the coal associations that would help protect coal miners. When it comes to the environmental regulation they will fight those because the means they will do things better without taking shortcuts and that translates into time and money that takes away from theiw profits. We have to be looking at a different future especially for our kids. I know people want to say this is a Family Tradition and has done so much for our families. Coalminer certainly has, i was raised on coal. We had a good life because of coal. But my parent never wanted me to end up in the minds and theres a reason for that. We have to break through the mentality of protecting in industry that is never had us in their best interest. What did they say when you did end up in the mind . Guest they understood eyes between a rock and a hard place for a job. My mom just said you have to do it you have to do. And when i left the mind she cried. Of she was glad to see me out. Your author of the thoughtfu, coalminer and also the ful founr breaking clean. Tell us what that is. Breaking clean is a company i created, many communications company. Y. I consider it more of a nonprofit. I tried to use it to create mita and develop stories that are playspace and communitybased to tell the issues of distractionju not just an appellation but anywhere it occurs when companies go into take advantage of resources without paying back to the people who live there. Dun its a means of doing Public Outreach and education and our need to become more Energy Efficient and thrifty with our resources. Host time for more phone calls. Adam from ohio. Good morning. Caller good morning. Een, i was a coalminer for about as lazy have been come around three years, as a welder, mechanic and labor as well. I got hurt august 16 or the night of, a herniated disc, c3, c4, c6. I miss work on the 18th because i couldnt get out of bed. The 19th i went back to work and herniated discs in the middle of my back. My question is, how can things improve when the coal miners are working against the coalminer himself and workers comp is doing the same. I have five kids i have to take care of just like every other coalminer. And here a. M. Disabled and not getting and the 23rd of this month i have to get the next surgery done and that is on my wifes insurance. Because workers comp. In the coal company is refusing to help. Yeah, that is one of the things that does not seem to make it through the Coal Industries media campaigns and their friends of Coal Organization campaigns. They dont talk about people like you are people like my friend who had a rib rollout and crush them under the shuttle car and how much the Insurance Company fought him or another dp friend who spent 30 years in the mind and develop black lung and the Company Fought him to keep him from getting disability. Same with black lung cases. If you talk to injured miners and you hear what they have to say youll hear a much better narrative about the true face of the coal industry. Not just that it keeps the lights on, honor and dignity for minors. You hear about what really happens to coal miners and how the Companies Think about them. Its been that way since the beginning. People would say the mule is more important than the minor. Miners are just tools and asbe soon as you used up they can just get something better. People have to understand this is not a compassionate narrative towards coal miners. The industry is in here to support coal miners theyre here to support themselves and their quarterly statements and thats it. Anything elses just trying to get people to believe theyre here for the better. Mmittee host be taken or viewers to the Senate Foreign relationsithi committee but i want to get as many calls. Now from brooklyn new york. Caller may be a covered this, but what percentage of the coal this country is taken from minute what from stripmininge guest i cant quote it off the top of my head. Theres been changes in recent years to to regulations due to downturn in the coal industry. I stripmining probably increased to some degree since it is more cost prohibitive or, more costeffective form of mining. H, its more mechanize. I dont have exact numbers. Host lets go to ohio. Mor good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have a lot of involvement in trying to address this matter and there are solutions. Its all about economics. Al the miners and poor folks they need jobs and money. Its not that they have to work, they recognize the dangers and speaking for myself as a former of ten years, i worked with chemical engineer eight years ago and submitted a proposal through the local university r with regard to complete dynamic reactive, deferred biodiesel. Because it was so clean it was the only fuel authorized is a 1 1 replacement. A reactor cost one 20th of the normal cost of industry specs and we use less than 60 of the alcohols that normal systems use. The fifth component was the farming model. Theres things that compete with mont santos on the soybeans. Of in our numbers in north dakota where they claimed there wasre going to be the gas boom and hao all these jobs announced destitute, those records in shblic documents on the seedss and plants showed the model would produce over 500 more than soybeans and is perfectly fine for and that kinda stu stuff. Guest there are alternatives. Like you said, you dont necessarily have to work in the coal mine. A lot of guys i worked with my heard to set a lot, i would work some other job in a heartbeat if i could make the same amount of money. And i think a lot would even take a pay cut especially knowing how volatile the in mstry and markets are. And how much of a lack of job security there is a mining. And 37 and i have already witnessed to bus in the industry that left people devastated. The first occurred in the 90s with my father. My mom had to take a job he wasnt the only one. People would like alternatives. I dont think anybody is married to the coal industry in terms o employment. Some are very dedicated and proud. Even they would consider a job that didnt risk their life and health and long term. When it comes back to energyy efficiency thats a way we can do these things. We can tackle the problem. If we were not so wasteful with energy we went have a National Energy problem. If you want to read more about his work go to the thoughtful coalminer. Com. Thank you for taking time with us. Thank you. We also heard from the head of an Energy Company in ohio on the future of the industry. Oi now to the Murray Corporation headquarters in ohio. We are joined by the ceo, robert murray. Thank you for joining us. Guest thank you for having me. Host where the transfer center, takes the coal from the century my, how many minds does Murray Energy operate and how many employees do you have . Gst