Coal Company Tells Workers Not to Vacation in Tennessee
In the latest sally in the war between pro-coal-at-any-cost and anti-mountaintop mining (MTR) advocates, Arch Coal subsidiary Coal-Mac, Inc., of Holden, West Virginia, has “recommended” that its 300 employees not vacation in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains. It’s also asking other coal firms to enforce the (dare we call it) ban.
The move is reportedly in response to testimony given at a recent U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing on MTR, a form of coal mining that rips the tops off mountaintops to get at the underlying coal, destroying entire ecologies, poisoning water supplies and leaving the landscape devastated.
At that hearing, Tennessee Dept. of Environment & Conservation’s Deputy Commissioner, Paul Sloan, said he supported legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), to ban MTR.
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