Mountaintop coal removal is wrong for so many reasons

I commend the Post-Gazette for the Feb. 26 story calling attention to the dangerous coal slurry impoundments and the travesty of the mountaintop removal method of coal mining in West Virginia ("Almost Flat, West Virginia: How Citizens Battle Against the Mining Companies That Carve Off Their Mountaintops").

However, several important points were not covered adequately. The most important omission was that federal regulatory agencies responsible for mining operations have been packed with former industry officials, political cronies and former lobbyists who do the bidding of the mining corporations. For example the Bush administration has changed the definition of mountaintop removal waste dumped into streambeds from "waste" to "fill" to keep the mining companies from violating the Clean Water Act. A bill before Congress, HR 2719, would reverse this change and deserves support.

Also omitted was a discussion of the inverse relationship between the extent of coal mining and the economic health of a region. Counties with the most coal mining are some of the poorest in the nation.

In addition, few companies will require their employees to relocate to a facility on the flat land created by mountaintop removal. The disfigured landscape wrought by coal mining is a disincentive for companies to relocate to heavily mined parts of Appalachia.

One only needs to compare the mountains of western North Carolina, where coal mining has been minimal, to the those of West Virginia and Kentucky to conclude that preserving the beauty of the mountains is better than exploiting the coal beneath them.

WALTER MASTROPAOLO
Mt. Lebanon

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Coming to us?

Regarding the Feb. 26 story "Almost Flat, West Virginia": Mountaintop removal mining is a tragedy that has been ongoing in West Virginia and Kentucky for decades. The social and environmental consequences of this practice are catastrophic, yet it has received very little attention outside the region. Many people of Appalachia feel that they have been abandoned and sacrificed for the country's need for inexpensive energy.

Mountaintop removal mining, and its consequences, could soon come to Pittsburgh. The state Department of Environmental Protection is reviewing a permit request by Pittsburgh Development Group II to employ mountaintop removal mining methods on a 635-acre forested site, known as Hays Woods, in the Hays section of Pittsburgh.

This site is only three miles from Point State Park. If the permit is granted, the forest will be removed, and as much as 250 feet of the hilltops will be blasted away to expose the underlying coal seam. After removing the coal, the overburden will be used to fill in at least five streams and level the site. The purpose of this mining activity is to prepare the site for a proposed development of a thoroughbred horse-racing track, hotel, retail and residential complex.

Hays Woods is within the Streets Run watershed, which is already prone to devastating flooding, and it is safe to assume that the removal of this forest, the filling in of these streams and the paving of the site will significantly increase the severity of flooding.

I hope Pittsburgh will not become known as the first metropolitan area to allow mountaintop removal mining to occur within its boundaries.

THOMAS MERRIMAN
McKeesport

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Unequal treatment

I read with interest your article concerning developer Ralph Falbo and the $533,000 he delayed paying the city, county and school district ("Falbo Projects Fall Behind in Paying Tax," Feb. 19).

I am the legal guardian of an elderly nursing home resident who owned property in Brighton Heights until it was recently sold at sheriff's sale. The amount due on the property -- $1,893.15. It probably cost the county more than the taxes owed to process the sale, yet no attempt is made to recover the hundreds of thousands of dollars from this developer who also owns property in Brighton Heights.

Why my client and not Mr. Falbo? My client was a longtime resident of Brighton Heights, a veteran, who fell ill and was unable to care for himself. This gentleman is now on Medicaid and was totally incapable of paying the taxes on his home. He will now be forced to stay on Medicaid, costing the government (and the taxpayers) more than if I could have been given the time to sell his property myself, generating funds for his care.

Any way you look at it, the taxpayers lose. All except Mr. Falbo, of course.

LYNN GIANNIRAKIS
Robinson

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More fitting name

PG Executive Editor David Shribman wonders if the current period will be known as the Bush era or merely the Bush presidency ("Unanswered Questions, Unfinished Business," Feb. 26 My Point column).

I have no doubt that historians will look back on the first decade of the 21st century as the "Bush error."

KEN PERKINS
Squirrel Hill

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Underlying beliefs

With great admiration I listened to students who bravely spoke at the Feb. 20 Upper St. Clair school board meeting. During this very public forum these young men and women demonstrated their strong sense of conviction and spoke of their personal beliefs and how they impact their views of the International Baccalaureate controversy ("Upper St. Clair Kills International Baccalaureate Program," Feb. 21).

With an equal degree of frustration, I read three board members' first collective, public response ("Why We Voted Against the International Baccalaureate Program," Feb. 26 Forum) citing their concerns regarding the IB program's quality, value and finances. However, at the Feb. 13 meeting, members of the board willingly offered their perspectives that the IB program opposed their views of Judeo-Christian and American values.

Given the haste to discontinue this program, the unwillingness to listen to many in the community, along with their own superintendent, and previous board member efforts to review textbooks, only the most naive would believe the political and ideological agendas of these members were not significant factors in their quest to end this program.

These board members' underlying beliefs have the potential to affect not just the IB program but also the direction of the entire school system. Upper St. Clair citizens have the right to know, in full, all the reasons for the decision to discontinue the IB program.

I hope and expect these board members will take a lesson from the very students whose lives they hope to shape and be forthright with their convictions, be open and honest with their agendas and take ownership and responsibility for all of their actions and statements.

DONALD KUSHNER
Upper St. Clair

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Not so super mug

Regarding the Feb. 26 story "Steelers' Stuff Rushes to Record Levels": I grew up in Pittsburgh, have been a Steelers fan since the late 1940s and did student-teacher (IUP, 1965) coaching under Fran Rogel (Steelers fullback 1950-57). I'm very disappointed in the quality of the merchandise now being sold. I have all five Steelers Super Bowl mugs and the latest is terrible (no pun) when compared to the first four.

The first four were made by Harris Brothers in New Jersey and the latest in China. When you put them together on the shelf, the latest is a mess.

Our corporations may be making money, but the consumer is getting junk for his money. Don't know how to take this problem on, but I wish I did.

Here we go, Steelers! Just letting off steam.

M. WAYNE MILLER JR.
Huntsville, Ala.

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Let's work as one to mandate that the slots licensee commits to arena

I applaud the Post-Gazette for its Feb. 19 editorial ("Arena Panacea: All of the Casino Plans Should Offer Igloo Funding"). The growing public consensus recognizes the basic rightness of a proposal I made in December -- that a new arena can easily be financed by private gaming revenues, saving hard-working local and state taxpayers millions of dollars. Whoever gets the Pittsburgh slots license could finance a new arena in several ways.

The license owner could set up an annuity, similar to the one used by the Pennsylvania Lottery to pay its million-dollar winners. Or, the license owner could simply borrow against its cash flow to fund a bond issue.

If a new arena is built with private funds, then $90 million in state capital funds that had been earmarked for arena construction could be used on other projects to stimulate the Western Pennsylvania economy. Or, we could simply save hard-working Pennsylvania families $90 million.

We need to work together as a community, to speak with one voice to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board and tell its members to heed our wishes and require Pittsburgh's slots casino licensee to build a new arena. For the reasons stated in the Post-Gazette editorial, as well as the huge profit margins projected by the license applicants themselves, the recipient of the slot license should commit to funding a new arena for Pittsburgh.

JACK WAGNER
Auditor General
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Harrisburg

Editor's note: The writer is a former state senator representing Pittsburgh and spent 10 years on Pittsburgh's City Council, serving as its president in 1990-93.