Coal River [Hardcover]

Michael Shnayerson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 8, 2008

One of America's most dramatic environmental battles is unfolding in southern West Virginia. Coal companies are blasting the mountains, decapitating them for coal. The forested ridge tops and valley streams of Appalachia--one of the country's natural treasures--are being destroyed, along with towns and communities. An entire culture is disappearing, and to this day, most Americans have no idea it's happening.

 

Michael Shnayerson first traveled to the coal fields four years ago, on assignment for Vanity Fair. There he met an inspiring young lawyer named Joe Lovett, who was fighting mountaintop removal in court with a series of brilliant and daring lawsuits. He also met Judy Bonds, whose grassroots group, the Coal River Mountain Watch, was speaking out in a region where talking truth to power was both brave and dangerous. The two had joined forces to take on Massey Energy, the largest and most aggressive of the coal companies, and its swaggering, notorious chairman, Don Blankenship.

 

Coal River is Shnayerson's account of this dramatic struggle. From courtroom to boardroom, forest clearing to factory floor, Shnayerson gives us a novelistic and compelling portrait of the people who risked their reputations and livelihoods in the fight against King Coal.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Through vivid first-person reporting and a thorough culling of court transcripts, newspaper clippings and corporate reports, Vanity Fair contributing editor Shnayerson (The Killers Within) has crafted an incriminating indictment of the Appalachian King Coal industry in West Virginia, and of the man he defines as its rapacious kingpin, Massey Energy's CEO, Don Blankenship. The author's sympathies lie clearly with opponents of mountaintop mining, most prominently young attorney Joe Lovett and citizen activist Judy Bonds. Both have fought against a form of mining that shears off the tops of hills and dumps rubble into valleys and streams—a process abetted by the collusion of the state's often-lackadaisical Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' propensity to grant stream-destroying permits without oversight and the easing of environmental controls by the Bush administration. Shnayerson's compelling take on toxic mining methods and their heartrending impact on Appalachian inhabitants and their culture, has a wider focus than Erik Reece's 2006 title, Lost Mountain, which reported on one mountaintop's destruction, and strong echoes of the stomach-churning legal machinations recounted in Jonathan Harr's 1995 bestseller, A Civil Action.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Advance Praise for COAL RIVER:

 

“Michael Shnayerson has ventured into one of the roughest and remotest parts of America and emerged with a brilliant and devastating work on the greed of the coal mining industry. I found myself hoping that certain people named in this book will read it and experience that sick fear of knowing their game is about to come to an end. Indeed, that is one of the very satisfying things about this book: As horrifying as the story is, there is the real and very beautiful possibility that justice will prevail in the end.”   —Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm

 

“This damning account of mountaintop beheading and rampant watershed destruction in four states of Appalachia should be obligatory reading for every Congressperson who deserves the name of lawmaker (and the lobby-led political hacks who claim it, too). Uncommonly well-written and well-researched, Coal River is an enthralling story of the few Americans courageous enough to ‘tell truth to power’ and oppose the crudest sort of environmental desecration and pollution for profit.”   —Peter Matthiessen                                                                 

 

“Coal River is the dismaying story of Armageddon in Appalachia. At one time the powerful forces of ignorance and greed are dooming America’s landscapes, our culture, and our democracy.”   —Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

 

“The coal that generates our electricity and lights our homes also poisons our air. Along the Appalachians of West Virginia, as Michael Shnayerson shows in this heartbreaking book, the relentless quest for ever more coal has leveled ancient mountain tops, corrupted politicians, destroyed communities, and sickened their people. Forty-five years ago, in his classic Night Comes to the Cumberlands, Harry Caudill warned of this looming disaster. Now, in his equally powerful book, Shnayerson reveals the price all of us must pay for ignoring Caudill’s warning.”   —Jason Epstein

 

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (January 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374125147
• ISBN-13: 978-0374125141
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #367,195 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How West Virginia is Being Destroyed in the Name of Greed and the Fight to Stop It January 22, 2008

By Frederick S. Goethel VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Coal River is the story of the practice of mountaintop removal mining in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia and of the people who tried to stop the practice. It also examines Don Blankenship, CEO and Chairman of Massey Energy who is considered by all involved to be the one person responsible for the most destruction.

For those not familiar with the technique, mountaintop removal mining involves literally blasting several hundred feet or more from the top of a mountain so that the coal can be extracted much more easily. The spoils of the removal are dumped over the edge of the mountain into streams that tend to run along the valley floor. That causes pollution and, in many cases, the entire closing of the stream which changes the entire hydrology of the area.

In theory, the mountains are supposed to be replaced to a near natural form at the end of mining, but that rarely happens, leaving a moonscape of rock and debris that will take thousands of years to remediate on its own. The coal companies have an agenda and will hardly allow the law to slow them down.

After reading the book I felt sick. The mountains of West Virginia are one of the prettiest places in the United States, and yet our government has been caught handing over permits for a process that is clearly illegal under the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts. The courts are of little use....they, too, have been bought by big coal.

This story of the courageous fight of the men and women of the valley is must read if you care for the environment of the planet at all. It is well written and very inspirational that such a small number of people were willing to take on Big Coal.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Coal River exposes "dirty little secret" January 23, 2008

By Alex Caulfield

Format:Hardcover

Coal River is an account of a small group of dedicated brave mountaineers who are more than willing to go toe to toe with a ruthless coal baron. King Coal is not accustomed to having his outlaw mining operations challenged. Hats off to Michael Schnayerson for accurately telling this must read story.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Raping West Virginia January 19, 2008

By C. Hutton

Format:Hardcover

Mr. Shnayerson is a crusader tilting at the relentless hunt for more coal in the out-of-the-way hollows of West Virginia. Strip mining has taken on a new meaning when entire mountains are leveled instead of their mountainsides. The hero of the 300+ page book is local lawyer Joseph Lovett who battles the government and the coal companies for small victories. The book is written in a conversational tone and it is clear that the author is an environmentalist. Given the near total control of West Virginia by the coal companies, that is not a bad thing.

21 of 27 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars I Badly Wanted to Give this a 5-Star Review February 7, 2008

By John Noodles

Format:Hardcover

This book tells an important and timely story--a story of rapacious greed. Coal companies have a long and gaudy history of abuse--abuse of both workers and the environment--and it's a history that continues.

There is much to admire about this book. It is told as a narrative and is in equal parts eco-thriller, human drama, and political/conspiracy thriller. It's entertaining and researched.

The main problem with this book is that Shnayerson is transparently biased in his storytelling. His physical descriptions of people, for example, tend toward the grotesquely unflattering for the villains (like Don Blankenship), and while he does give elements of both sides of the story, it remains obvious which side he's on. The author is fighting the good fight, yes, but to appeal to a wider audience he needs to maintain a tone of greater objectivity. He seems, for instance, surprised and disappointed that the governmental corruption that allows the coal companies' disgusting and continued abuses resides largely among Democrats--who control state government. At one point, talking about coal companies' willful lawbreaking, and the state agencies that permit it (and the judges), he says, "The law was the law, and flagrant disregard for it was hard for any judge to ignore, even a conservative one." Well, he wasn't talking about conservative judges, so where did this come from? Did he just say that conservative judges are more likely to be corrupt than liberal ones? Sure sounds like it to me. In fact, throughout the book, there are only two kinds of judges: conservative judges looking for a reason to side with the coal companies, and "moderate" judges. No liberals here (because liberals apparently all see themselves as moderate)....

This sort of thing occurs throughout the book,. He will mention when a Democratic judge or administration does something legally suspect, but that's all he does--he mentions it, in passing, and doesn't dwell on it like he does Republican violators. When a conservative judge decides a case in a manner that he favors, that judge apparently does so only because the law is too obvious to ignore--too obvious even for innately corrupt conservative judges. When conservative judges decide a case in a manner contrary to his position, they are branded "activists" (the term "activist" being synonymous, apparently, with "constructionist" in this case) without further explanation. It doesn't detract, necessarily, from the entertainment value of the book because we enjoy seeing the coal companies getting their rear ends whipped, but it sure is shoddy journalism, and won't win any converts.

Shnayerson's poor handling of the story is unfortunate. In undermining his own credibility in this way, he prevents the critical reader from knowing what to trust in his account. I am a conservative who is very unhappy with other conservatives' handling of environment issues, and I would like someone to write a book like this that doesn't just preach to the choir and alienate the opposition, but that presents the issue as a problem in which we ALL have an interest. Because we do.

Still, this book's conspicuous shortcomings notwithstanding, the rapacity of the coal industry is impossible to deny. The destruction they wreak is too glaring. If only half of what this book says is true, it is still a vivid indictment of the industry and the government agencies--and the corrupt people who work in them--whose job it is to protect the public interest. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A David-and-Goliath tale February 9, 2011

By Michael F. Kennedy

Format:Hardcover

I picked up this book because it takes place close to where I grew up (much of it in the same county), because I love the mountains and fear for them, because I grew up in an area dominated by the coal industry and I have an interest and a grudging admiration for it. But I liked the book most of all for the story of a rookie lawyer and a few clients with little in the way of resources but a burning desire to fight for what's right.

At times it reads a bit like "A Civil Action," or perhaps a John Grisham novel, though the real-life tactics of restraining orders and injunctions played out over the battleground of arcane environmental regulations is hardly the stuff of a legal thriller.

On the other hand, the book has a great villain, and author Michael Shnayerson does a good job of trying to explain what motivates Massey Chairman Don Blankenship. This book was written before the deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine near where much of this book plays out, and his cataloging of Massey's sorry safety record seems prophetic. Odd too, is Massey's reluctance to stand up to its controversial and -- toward the end -- arguably inept, chairman. It was only after 29 miners died at Upper Big Branch after this book was published that Blankenship got the ax.

For someone who grew up in West Virginia politics, it's a treat as well. I can remember when federal judges who now go by grander-sounding names were once Joe Bob or Chuck. I found myself wanting to tell the author a bit of backstory, but usually he came around to relating it. (Though the book mentions Richard Neely, it doesn't say he was once a state Supreme Court justice. Neither does it mention that Sen. Jay Rockefeller, now a friend of coal, once opposed strip mining. He lost big in that election....) This book is sort of like coming home for a funeral. It's good to visit and see the old friends, but the reason for being there is sad.

I very much enjoyed the book, but it has a couple of flaws, one endemic to the story, the other the author's way of telling it. The book ends where the book must, something significant happens, but it's not the end. It may never be the end. That's the nature of the fight and not the author's fault.

One reviewer here has heavily penalized the book for the author's use of biased language in describing those on one side of the debate versus those on the other. (I agree, but enjoyed everything else so much, I'm a bit more forgiving.) In one scene, a Massey security guard goes along with the plaintiff's experts on a court-ordered trip to take water samples on Massey property. Though the guard does nothing sinister, he's described as "hulking" in one sentence and a "goon" in another. It's unfair and unneeded. There's plenty of villainy without making a matinee Western out of it.

Still, it's a very good book and if you're interested in West Virginia politics or the coal industry or the fate of our mountains, you'll find it plenty interesting. Read more ›