wfn.org | Governor objects to church's involvement in mining issue

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 15, 1998	Contact: Thomas S. McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville,
Tenn.      {363}

By United Methodist News Service

West Virginia Gov. Cecil Underwood, a United Methodist, has objected to
an effort by church members in the state to stop mountaintop removal
mining.

In a story by Charleston Daily Mail capitol reporter Stacey Ruckle, the
governor was quoted as saying United Methodists should worry about more
personal issues.

"I think that this kind of social action by the church is outside its
primary role," he said.

Clergy and lay members to the West Virginia Annual (regional) Conference
meeting in Buckhannon June 11-14, called for a halt to all mountaintop
removal coal mining until the long-term human and environmental effects
of the practice are studied.

John Taylor, a member of Asbury United Methodist Church in Charleston
and of the Methodist Federation for Social Action, which made the
proposal, said he had seen from an airplane wide areas of southern West
Virginia that had been devastated by mining.

"They take everything, dump it in the creek and ruin the land," he said.
"We are selling our birthright for porridge. The coal company is getting
the cream, and we're getting skim milk."

God spent millions of years creating the land, Taylor said. "Are we
going to destroy it in 10 years?"

Underwood, a former coal executive, supports the mining method. In the
face of a recent debate on the issue, he assigned a task force to study
the effects of mountaintop removal and the blasting that goes along with
it.

Critics say mountaintop removal irreversibly robs the landscape and
pollutes streams. However, the coal industry maintains its reclamation
projects restore nature's balance to the mountains, though reducing
their size.

When told about a resolution before the United Methodist Church's West
Virginia Conference, the governor noted that the denomination has been
losing members for years.  

"They have other problems they should be concerned about," he told the
Daily Mail.

Underwood said the United Methodists should focus their efforts on
causes such as Mission West Virginia, a statewide interfaith network
that the governor created in 1997 to work against illiteracy and other
problems that perpetuate poverty.

The governor said he doesn't believe the resolution, which was later
approved by the conference, would affect new legislation expanding
mountaintop removal opportunities.

The Rev. Ed Tutwiler, chairman of the conference's Board of Church and
Society, said a flight over a mountaintop removal site convinced him
that the practice should be halted until the long-term effects can be
determined. He was also influenced by a sign in a company building on
the site warning that the water is not drinkable, he said. 

The Rev. Tom Dunlap, of First United Methodist Church in South
Charleston, tried unsuccessfully to defeat the resolution.

"I want a fair and adequate study of mountaintop mining" without putting
hundreds of miners out of work, which would happen if the method were
stopped today, he said.

Issues related to mining are not new to United Methodists.  In 18th
century England, tin and lead miners flocked by the thousands to hear
John Wesley preach. The founder of Methodism expressed concern for both
their souls and the appalling social condition in which the miners were
forced to live and work.

# # #

NOTE:  Some of the information for this story came from the June 11
issue of the Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail and from Tom Burger, director
of communications of the West Virginia Annual Conference of the United
Methodist Church.

United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
Releases and photos also available at
http://www.umc.org/umns/