Beyond the Coal Divide: Diversifying the Economy, Sustaining the Environment, and Finding Common Ground in the Coalfields of Southwest Virginia

In the coalfields of Appalachia, community members often find themselves on polarizing sides of a debate over a type of environmentally destructive coal extraction called mountaintop removal mining (MTR). However, as the market for coal has steadily declined because of cheap natural gas prices and increased federal environmental regulations, community members all along the spectrum of the debate are acutely aware of the need for new economic opportunities in the region. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted in Southwest Virginia, and utilizing understandings of the intersections of environment and economy in public life as conceptualized by Daniel Faber (2008), David Harvey (1996), and Alf Hornborg (2001), I examine how the different ways citizens understand and articulate the challenges of coalfield communities create fictive divisions that obscure the common concerns that all citizens hold about the health, safety, and economic future of their communities. For example, many local opponents of the practice of MTR are members of the local grassroots environmental group. While this group is identified within both its membership and local community as an environmental organization, the reasons that members cite for opposing MTR are not environmental in scope, but rather are issues related to health, safety, and economy created or exacerbated by the environmental consequences of MTR. Similarly, supporters of MTR are also concerned about the health, safety, and economy of their communities- but with layoffs in the mines and local businesses closing down becoming commonplace, environmental issues are not in their range of articulated concerns