If you have ever read Dickens, the image of a grimy dirty London looms large in his stories. For decades, coal was the power for expanding industrialized cities across the world. Factories used it to power their machines, homes used it for cooking fuel and to keep warm and cities were covered with the soot from the exhaust. To this day, soot marks stain ancient buildings in London and Edinburgh, reminders of the use of coal in these cities' growth. To this day, in northeastern Pennsylvania, culm dumps, deposits of the waste created when mining coal, still dot the landscape. At least they rarely catch on fire anymore.
But this all seems like ancient history. Industry runs on cleaner burning fuels now and not many people heat their homes with coal. So why isn't it clean coal now? First, coal hasn't changed the way it burns. We don't burn as much of it as we did in the 1800's so the amount of pollution it creates is lessened. This picture from a steel plant in China tells another story. 
The US might have stopped using as much coal to run our companies but China hasn't. Their coal use is impacting our environment.
Even though, I'm still talking ancient history and faraway lands for some people, so let me bring this closer home. In October of 2000, 250 million gallons of coal sludge broke out of a 72-acre, 2.2 billion gallon waste lagoon and into Coldwater Creek in Kentucky. Just a 2.2 billion gallon waste lagoon boggles my mind but the damage it did to the land and creek as it flooded down was immeasurable. Officials say all fish in the Coldwater Creek, neighboring Wolf Creek and Big Sandy River were killed. It left deposits up to six feet thick, suffocating frogs, salamanders and other aquatic wildlife. Eventually, the corporation responsible for the mine paid for the damages. This is just one of many hundreds of examples of coal contaminating water, polluting wells, and probably causing cancer.
This is just one way that the coal industry is contaminating our country. Another has to do with the way coal companies are run. For instance, Massey Coal was the company that had created the 2.2 billion gallon waste lagoon. They are also the company that is in charge of the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, the site of an explosion that killed 29 miners last week. On NPR this morning, they spoke with people from the area. Many applauded Massey. But keep in mind that Massey is the biggest employer in the area, affecting not just mining jobs but the retail and service industries in the region. Those who might have decried Massey were accused of stirring up trouble because Massey is a non-union company and that doesn't sit well with unionized miners. The news reports a different picture though of violation after violation in the mine. What is the truth? This is where we again can wonder how clean coal is. People are reluctant to point fingers because they know on which side their bread is buttered. Violations occur and money is paid. Is it all being reported correctly? The public, and the miners, will never know.
I'm sure knowing my ancestry that there are coal miners in my family. And I realize that as long as there is a demand for coal, men will go down in the mines and extract it from the bowls of the earth. I also know that coal is not the clean solution that it is made out to be. It has a history of polluting our environment and being run by hard-driving companies that will make a profit. Perhaps the next time a clean coal commercial comes on the tv, we should change the channel and not get sold on the bill of goods.
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