in THE MOUNTAIN EAGLE (Whitesburg, KY)

June 7, 2005

A "corrupt and lawless" Bush administration is working hard to destroy advancements in coal mine safety and environmental regulations, a former mine safety engineer told an audience in Whitesburg over the weekend.

Jack Spadaro, former superintendent of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy, a training facility for the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) based in Beckley, W.Va., made his remarks at a panel discussion held at Appalshop Saturday after a showing of the new film "Sludge," which looks at the 2000 coal slurry spill at a Martin County mine owned by the A.T. Massey Company.

Spadaro, a well-respected safety engineer whose plight was featured on a "60 Minutes" special in April 2004, told the audience that dealing with the Bush administration and Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao made him yearn for the Nixon years.

Spadaro is a 35-year MSHA veteran who had been with MSHA since former President Richard Nixon signed the bill creating the agency into law as part of the 1969 Mine Safety Act. According to Spadaro, the Nixon administration showed greater respect for the law than the administration of George W. Bush.

"After dealing with the Bush administration, I'd rather see the Nixon people," Spadaro said. "The Bush administration is the most corrupt and lawless that I have seen."

The panel including Spadaro was assembled by "Sludge" filmmaker Robert Salyer. Other members included Martin County residents Mick and Nina McCoy, who are both high school teachers in Martin County.

Spadaro told the audience that Clinton administration officials had ordered a comprehensive investigation of the sludge spill and that MSHA, then under the direction of Davitt McAteer, set out to conduct one. He said the investigation was thwarted in January 2000, when George W. Bush took over the White House and Chao was appointed Labor Secretary.

"I think Elaine Chao and Mitch McConnell (the Kentucky senator who is Chao's husband) have something to do with Massey Coal," said Spadaro. "They (Massey) gave over $100,000 to the Republican Senate Committee while they were being investigated.

"MSHA had a good reputation for years," Spadaro told the audience. "Under the Clinton administration, McAteer said to find out what happened and why."

Spadaro also warned the audience that sludge ponds will keep getting larger and larger. He said that's because of the large amount of clay taken along with coal during mountaintop removal mining. He pointed to one pond in West Virginia that will hold nine billion gallons of coal waste when it is completed.

Spadaro said mountaintop removal is causing a drastic reduction in streams and total acreage in Kentucky and Virginia. He said technology exists to process coal without the need for the ponds, but that it costs about a dollar more a ton to process.

"Over one million acres have been mountaintop mined in Kentucky and West Virginia," said Spadaro. "By 2012, about 2,150 square miles will have been destroyed, along with 1,900 miles of stream bed."

Mick McCoy told the audience about seeing men wearing white suits with white hard hats, driving white trucks that "sucked the stuff up." McCoy said he approached one of them and asked, "What do you do with this stuff?"

"Hell," replied the man, "I've never seen this kind of -------."

Spadaro told the audience that another large spill of coal waste is inevitable, given the number of sludge ponds in the region. He said there are 650 sludge ponds in central Appalachia and 250 of them are located over old mines, just like the Martin County pond. "It's only a matter of time until another one fails," he said.

Spadaro said when the sludge dries, it can become dust and becomes airborne and breathable. He said toxic elements from mining are most concentrated in the sludge and the number of "blue lung" cases from coal preparation plants have increased dramatically.

Spadaro said even Bill Caylor, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, agrees with him about rethinking the means of disposing of sludge.

Nina McCoy told the audience that one federal agency told the residents of Martin County that toxic elements in the sludge were about the same as in regular soil in Martin County. When Spadaro said that in reality toxic levels are about 1,500 times more concentrated in sludge than in soil, McCoy replied it was critical to go outside Kentucky to have the soil and water analyzed in the future.

"Who can we trust?" asked McCoy. "We need our regulatory agencies back. Everywhere we turned, we just heard lies from these agencies."

Mick McCoy also pointed to a new plan to return trash to Martin County and burn approximately 220 tons per day on Martin County land that has been strip mined. McCoy said Martin County produces about eight to 10 tons of garbage per day, so he asked where the rest would come from.

Spadaro told the audience when he discusses the sludge spill in other parts of the country, people are generally appalled by the situation but say they also wonder why they haven't heard more about it. He said he had recently spoken to a New York Times reporter who had asked him why the national media hadn't taken more care in reporting the sludge spill story. Spadaro said he replied that the lack of coverage was because it hadn't happened in Connecticut.

"It was in Appalachia," said Spadaro. "We are considered expendable."

Spadaro said eastern Kentucky and West Virginia now have enough flood control dams in place to enable the region to supply most of the electrical power needs for the region if turbines were installed.

Robert Salyer told the audience he has been subpoenaed to court by Massey Coal for his role in making the film. Salyer compared the threats faced by people living near mountaintop removal sites and below sludge ponds to the familiar mantra of the Bush administration.

"I feel like these people are victims of terrorism," said Salyer. "When you hear people talk about the blasts that shake their homes off the foundation and the sludge ponds that threaten their lives daily so they can't sleep at night, that's terrorism."