Marfork’s parent company is Alpha Metallurgical Resources, the former Contura Energy, formed by the 2015 bankruptcy of Alpha Natural Resources. The Black Eagle mine, which is owned by Marfork Coal Company, began operating in 2018. They want someone to fix the problems they’re experiencing - or they want out. “We’re not after that” - closing the mine, or anything that would affect peoples’ jobs.īut after three years of living next to a coal operation that’s ramping up, from 61 jobs in 2019 to 168 this year, they’ve grown frustrated. “There’s a lot of people in this community right here that actually make their living down there,” he said. Some of them work in the industry, like Jones, who drives a truck for a contractor hauling coal from Black Eagle. “We don’t want to stand in the way of progress, but we don’t want to die trying to live,” said Annabel Aliff, who lives next door to Jones.Īll of these neighbors know the coal industry’s grip on places like Raleigh County. Jones and his neighbors were gathered beneath a roadside park pavilion, sharing stories about a new member of their community along the Big Coal River: the Black Eagle Mine. “It’s either buy us out or we’re just going to have to live in it. “There’s no other way out of it,” Rick Jones said.
Then the coal dust, coating neighbors’ cars. Then came the blasts that shook the houses in the small Raleigh County community. This story was co-published with Southerly, a nonprofit journalism organization that covers the intersection of ecology, justice, and culture in the American South.ĮUNICE - It started with the noise, the round-the-clock roar of a mine ventilation fan.
0 kommentar(er)
