By Jeff Biggers
Federal
prosecutors said Don Blankenship operated Massey Energy as a "lawless
enterprise." He's seen here leaving a federal courthouse in Charleston,
W.Va., on Nov. 17, when the jury began deliberations. (Photo: Kara Lofton/West
Virginia Public Broadcasting)
The landmark conviction of
former Massey Energy CEO and coal baron Don Blankenship today on a misdemeanor
conspiracy charge to violate mine safety laws is a small, but historic first
step in holding
mining outlaws accountable for their reckless operations.
For the first time in memory for those of us with friends,
family, miners and loved ones living amid the toxic
fallout of the coal industry, this conviction may only serve as
a tiny reckoning of our nation's complacency with a continual state of
violations, but it could begin a new era of justice and reconciliation in the
devastated coal mining communities in Appalachia and around the nation.
With the most serious charges dropped, Blankenship's misdemeanor
charge only carries up to one year in prison.
The tragedy of spiraling black lung
disease among coal miners will continue, notably part of the
autopsies among 71 percent of the miners lost in the Upper Big Branch disaster.
The crime of
cancer-linked mountaintop removal from Blankenship's
violation-ridden former Massey Energy operations will continue; the potential
disasters from coal slurry
impoundments will still hang above the heads of residents.
"Either way there is no justice for the men that lost their
lives in the Upper Big Branch Explosion," said Maria Gunnoe, a Goldman
Prize recipient in West Virginia, "nor will there be justice for the
families that lost so much more than just coal miners. The time has come that
there is no other choice but to convict these obvious criminals. Don
Blankenship's punishment will never match his crimes against the people of Appalachia."
"Don Blankenship's conviction doesn't feel like
victory" added Bob Kincaid, President of Coal River Mountain Watch,
"but in the grand scope of more than a century of the coal industry's
abuse of the people of Appalachia, it may mark a stating place, but that is a
only hope at the very most. My heart aches for all those who suffered and died
under Blankenship's avaricious lash. The jury showed him more mercy than he has
ever shown anyone in his entire existence on this planet. Even if he serves his
one year slap-on-the-wrist, we know already that justice will not be done. His
legacy of poisoning Appalachia will persist long after his name has been
forgotten."
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Jeff
Biggers is the author of The United
States of Appalachia, and more recently,Reckoning at
Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland (The
Nation/Basic Books). Follow him on twitter: @JeffRBiggers