Kentucky's Own Hell

Many people have heard about the infamous underground coal mine fire in Centralia, PA, which has been continuously raging since 1962 and necessitated the total evacuation of the city. It is currently considered unstoppable and is burning for miles under the surface. The Centralia underground fire has been the subject of numerous documentaries, news stories, and articles.

But how many know that a very similar subterranean catastrophe is taking place right here in Kentucky?

The Tiptop underground mine fire in Bulan, KY (Breathitt County), also known as the Lost Mountain fire or "the Ruth Mullins fire" for the lady who discovered it, is burning out of control just below the Earth's surface and has been for apparently many years.

But how did this happen? Details are sketchy. An article in Discover doesn't really delve into the fire's origins. According to Earth Magazine, "No one seems to know how long it’s been burning, how much coal it has consumed, how it started or the dangers associated with it."

A report of scientific analysis of the outgassing fumes from the Tiptop fire paints an ecologically troubling picture:

At the time of our visits, concentrations of CO2 peaked at 2.0% and > 6.0% (v/v) and CO at 600 ppm and > 700 ppm during field analysis in May 2008 and January 2009, respectively. For comparison, these concentrations exceed the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) eight-hour safe exposure limits (0.5% CO2 and 50 ppm CO), although the site is not currently mined. Mercury, as Hg0, in excess of 500 and 2100 μg/m3, in May and January, respectively, in the field, also exceeded the OSHA eight-hour exposure limit (50 μg/m3). Carbonyl sulfide, dimethyl sulfide, carbon disulfide, and a suite of organic compounds were determined at two vents for the first sampling event. All gases are diluted by air as they exit and migrate away from a gas vent, but temperature inversions and other meteorological conditions could lead to unhealthy concentrations in the nearby towns.

There are at least nine sites with major openings in the ground where the Ruth Mullins fire is venting, extending over a huge area that occupies both Breathitt and Perry counties. Many researchers believe that underground coalmine fires such as this (there are many around the world, especially in China) could be a major culprit in man-made global warming.

On the other hand, such fires can also be a part of mother nature's plan. An enormous mountain in Australia, once thought to be a volcano, has turned out to be a naturally-occuring underground coal-seam fire that has been raging for over six millenia.

And if, as many Native Americans believe, coal has a mind of its own, then the coal spirit may be well pleased by its own blaze of glory.

What is Coal?

The fossil fuel known as coal is the largest source of energy for the generation of electricity worldwide. And, as it just so happens, Kentucky's chock-full of the stuff. It's sprinkled throughout the state but is especially pocketed in two major deposit areas that take up half of Kentucky.

But what is coal?

According to Wikipedia, "Coal begins as layers of plant matter accumulated at the bottom of a body of water. For the process to continue the plant matter must be protected from biodegradation and oxidization, usually by mud or acidic water. The wide shallow seas of the Carboniferous period provided such conditions."


Everything we do today, around the world, depends on the continued mining of this dessicated metamorphosized prehistoric plant material from the days of the proto-dinosaurs.

But coal is essentially carbon, which is in itself the basic building block of all life on Earth. Although it's theoretically possible that there could be other forms of life out there in the Universe, such as silicon-based life, it's purely within the realm of speculation. For our purposes here on Earth, everything is based on carbon.

In very ancient times, mankind's world was revolutionized by the simple discovery that carbon could give us Carbon Black, a material derived by charring organic materials such as wood or bone, for the purposes of ink for writing and pigment for art. From this man progressed from the spoken word to the written word, and language and communication took a quantum leap into becoming something tangible, something you could save and have and hold and touch. Veritably, "the word made flesh".

Those who find significance in the number 666 as being representational of evil and Satanic forces might then find it troubling to know that the atom of elemental carbon is comprised of 6 electrons, 6 protons, and 6 neutrons. As they say, the Devil is in the details.


And since the number 666 is supposed to be connected to a future "Mark of the Beast" that is placed on every person's body, it's also interesting to note that most black tattoo inks use carbon black ("the word made flesh" again). Could the Mark of the Beast be, literally, a tattoo that inserts carbon into your skin cells?

(Short answer: yep. Take a look at U.S. Patent 5,878,155, issued to Houston inventor Thomas W. Heeter, described as a "Method for verifying human identity during electronic sale transactions" — by tattooing a bar code on an individual.)

And what does this Satanic interpretation of coal mean when symbolically applied to the notion of Santa Claus who, like Krampus before him, places coal in the stockings of "bad" children?

Meanwhile, some researchers in China have discovered that coal specifically from the Permian-Triassic mass extinction is especially toxic and harmful to humans today. As the American Chemical Society press release puts it: "The volcanic eruptions thought responsible for Earth’s largest mass extinction which killed more than 70 percent of plants and animals 250 million years ago is still taking lives today." Interestingly, part of what is making the extinction-coal-dust so harmful is the high level of silicon.

Coal dust, being essenially carbon, is forever lodged in not just the lungs but many other internal organs of many Kentuckians. It also has a tendency to remain trapped in the skin and other tissues. Just as I wonder about the ubiquitous corn molecules that are permeating all human tissues, I also wonder about the long-term consequences for us as a species having greater and greater amount of coal being permanent parts of our own personal ecosystems. It isn't just for coal miners anymore.

The Algonquins tell us that all substances and all things have a separate spirit, an entity that represents that thing and pervades it, called a Manitou. If so, the Manitou of carbon, the Manitou of coal, and even the Manitous of the prehistoric plants who once were these atoms are inside us, touching us, within us all even as we speak.

And what is their intent for us?


If there is an answer that we have chance of gleaning, it probably lies deep underground, in the coal's natural habitat, where dust-drenched Kentuckians endure the sulphurous reek of the hellish subterranean mines.

Paradise

The John Prine song "Paradise" - which has been performed by everyone from Dwight Yoakam to Jimmy Buffett to Jackie DeShannon to Hayseed Dixie - is actually about a real Kentucky coal town by the name of Paradise.

Well, it was a real town, anyway. Now its a ghost town, having been defunct since 1967, Very little of it remains today, joining the list of other Kentucky cities-now-gone including Cannel City, Fudge, and Scuffletown.

Click here for photos of the old Paradise in its glory days, on muhlenbergcountyky.com. Their photo above shows Green River Boats at Paradise, circa 1900.

Concrete and Pavement Tainted?

Recently 60 Minutes ran an expose on the dangers of coal ash, and how it's turning up in unexpected places - like road asphalt.

The stuff has already been wreaking havoc on the environment for many years now, like in October 2000 when a coal ash sludge impoundment in Martin County gushed into a underground mine and sent an estimated 306 million gallons (1.16 billion liters) of sludge into tributaries of the Tug Fork River. This incident was investigated in the documentary film Sludge by Appalshop filmmaker Robert Salyer in 2005.

Scary thing is, now Kentucky's coal ash is being used as an additive for the manufacture of pavement used on highways, as an ingredient in some brands of concrete, and even in household materials like carpeting and kitchen countertops.

The EPA doesn't seem to have a problem with this, and even promotes the practice by claiming that using coal ash as an additive has the net effect of "decreasing greenhouse gas emissions from avoided cement manufacturing". (Uh.... but what about the greenhouse gas emissions that resulted in the creation of the coal ash in the first place??)

The folks at Earthjustice are working to make the EPA properly regulate coal ash as the toxic and dangerous substance that it is. The EPA promised to regulate coal ash after more than 1 billion gallons of it burst from a Tennessee storage pond last December. So far they have not kept that promise.


According to the Earthjustice website:

This waste can cause cancer, birth defects, lung and organ damage, and other health threats. It contains such dangerous chemicals as arsenic, lead, mercury, chromium and cadmium. There is enough coal ash in ponds and landfills across the country to flow continuously over Niagara Falls for more than 3 days straight.

Coal Industry Pressuring Obama?

There's a recent article in the Lexington Herald-Leader about a puzzling reversal - or what seems to be one - in Obama's policy on strip-mining:

The celebration was short for the Obama administration's expected crackdown on devastating coal-mining practices in Kentucky and West Virginia.

Back in March, the applause and good press rolled in.

A retooled Environmental Protection Agency, under administrator Lisa Jackson, announced that it was formally questioning a couple of mountaintop-removal permit applications and would scrutinize others for compliance with the Clean Water Act and other federal laws.

With considerably less fanfare, the EPA last month quietly informed a congressman from West Virginia that it had given the green light to 42 permit applications while raising concerns about six others in the Corps of Engineers' Huntington district.

There hasn't been time for a thorough review of 42 mining permits, so we can only assume that the administration caved to pressure from coal interests.

That assumption is confirmed by the Los Angeles Times which reports that there was a "series of White House meetings with coal companies and advocates," including U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-West Virginia, and West Virginia's Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin.