Maria, very good rant and from someone who knows firsthand. I'm putting this on the SC Energy Committee list serve. There are some good points in your rant that we should all be aware of. Regina

Maria Gunnoe wrote:

Wow now we get switch grass on the river banks.

Everything they experiment with on these mine sites end up growing along the creeks.......

I know because we never had Chinese knot weed until they started wrecklaiming. Now its taking over. What makes anyone think they can get anything including GRASS to grow long enough to "farm" on subsiding land. This land is simply ALWAYS moving into the valley streams and settling and it will be for 1000's of years to come. BTW this is not LAND. Its a friggan pile of rocks with dirt and lots of silica dust scattered . The co's have deposited everything they needed to dispose of in this pile of rocks. They have got everyone convinced that this is LAND. Its nots its former land turned upside down, drizzeled with deisel fuel, gasoline old motor oil, old hydraulic fluid, old tires, rotting half burnt trees, rusting peices of equipment, in some cases our former cemeteries, and its all covered up by a nice blanket of green so we have let them convince us that we have something here. IT's waters and soil are toxic. This is not land. Its a toxic waste dump. call it what it is!

Yes we need them to fix this as best as possible but I still say they need to put native trees and plants on these sites and solar farms. Switch grass could be doable but do we really want this growing along our streams too? _This is what will happen!!! _

Pond Fork is getting choaked out by Chinese Knot weed and Autum Olive. These are not native and they are invasive.

Its just my thoughts but I think we need to refer to this for what it is. Wrecklaimed mine sites are dead. Never in a 100 lifetimes will we see what was once there. (productive soil clean water and quality land.) Its kind of the same concept as "clean coal" they are thinking lets see if we can do this...... Meantime all their mad experiments end up in the valley's streams. I would like to see them get the native plant life _in the streams_ growing again. This would impress me. My point is they will never reclaim dead land. I know they have to try but they need to keep their invasive experiments on their property and stop smouthering my REAL land with it. Because it doesn't take hold on the pile of rocks in the valley behind me. It simply washes down the stream to my place and takes hold where there is actually more stable land to grow on.

The entire concept of reclaimed land is as a big lie as clean coal.

If they stop doing it then they don't have to worry about how they are going to get anything to grow there. I think they are destorying farmed lands with MTR. I know my family before me growed corn on the mtn tops because it grew much bigger. They called them mountain feilds. Just my rant...

Maria Gunnoe OVEC Community Outreach and Issue Organizer "Stand Beside or Step Aside" www.ohvec.org http://www.ohvec.org www.ilovemountains.org http://www.ilovemountains.org www.southwings.org http://www.southwings.org www.patchworkfilms.com http://www.patchworkfilms.com www.ran.org http://www.ran.org www.burningthefuture.com http://www.burningthefuture.com

HELP THE KIDS HAVE A SAFE SCHOOL IN SUNDIAL, WV @ www.penniesofpromise.org http://www.penniesofpromise.org

DO SOMETHING NOW TO STOP THE MADNESS OF MTR!! WRITE YOUR REP'S ASK THEM TO CO-SPONSER THE CLEAN WATER PROTECTION ACT HR 2169. WE ARE AS CLOSE AS WE HAVE EVER BEEN TO STOPPING MTR AND WE NEED YOUR HELP! CHECK TO SEE IF YOUR REP HAS SIGNED ON AS A CO SPONSER @ www.thomas.gov http://www.thomas.gov # HR 2169 WRITE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR OF YOUR LOCAL PAPER! CONSERVE ENERGY! VOTE! GET SIGNED UP FOR OVEC ACTION ALERTS AND BECOME AN OVEC MEMEBER @ www.ohvec.org http://www.ohvec.org

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 5:37 AM, Vivian Stockman <vivian@ohvec.org mailto:vivian@ohvec.org> wrote:

November 29, 2008
WVU studies ex-mine sites as biofuel farms
Research in early stages to find if abandoned, reclaimed land can
be used
http://www.wvgazette.com/News/200811280586


By The Associated Press


MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- For now, they amount to little more than
snow-dusted
stubble on 30 otherwise barren acres, but in Jeff Skousen's mind, the
switchgrass seeds planted on three former strip mines will someday
be 3- to
10-foot-tall fields, swaying in the breeze and ready to be turned
into fuel.

If all the pieces fall into place - a big 'if,' he admits - the
vision will
be repeated on thousands of acres across West Virginia, with
abandoned and
reclaimed coal mine sites finding new life as farmland.

Switchgrass and its energy-producing potential are hot topics among
researchers nationwide. At Oklahoma State University, for example, the
federal government is investing $20 million in research on how best to
convert it and other grasses into biofuel.

Skousen, a soil science professor at West Virginia University, has
a more
narrow focus: Can the slow-starting switchgrass take hold on mine
sites that
often are stripped of topsoil, eroded and acidic, or loaded with
rocks?

"We have thousands or tens of thousands of acres that are just sitting
there,'' he says. "In general, the principles are sound. It's just
a matter
of whether we can make it happen. Will the coal companies adopt
it, and will
we be able to find the people to harvest it and make it their
livelihood?''

Switchgrass fields could even create jobs for residents who could help
compact the plant material, turn it into pellets or build refineries.

That's getting ahead of himself, though, he says: "We first have to
demonstrate we can do it.''

Using a $40,000 grant from the governor's office, WVU and the state
Department of Environmental Protection targeted three reclaimed,
10-acre
sites for planting in May: the former Magnum Coal Co. Hobet 21
mine near
Madison in Boone County; a former Coal-Mac Inc. mine near Holden
in Logan
County; and a former mine site now owned by the Upper Potomac River
Commission near Piedmont in Mineral County.

Surface mines can range from 1,000 to 12,000 acres and often have
roads,
water, utilities and even possible sites for ethanol processing,
says the
DEP's Ken Ellison, director of the Division of Land Restoration.

To know if they're feasible farmlands, though, the state needs
research.

WVU's Water Research Institute will manage the project. Skousen,
Travis
Keene and their fellow scientists will monitor growth for three
years, then
harvest and assess switchgrass' fuel-making potential.

At each site, they expect to learn something different. The
Piedmont site,
where sewage and paper-mill sludge were dumped for years, promises
the best
fertility, Skousen says, but it also has weeds that can choke out the
switchgrass.

Abandoned mine lands might be acidic, eroded and barren, so
switchgrass
could help reclaim them. Their soils, however, might not be
fertile and
might require much more preparation. Reclaimed-mine lands might
require less
preparation work because coal operators have restored the topsoil.

Regardless of whether a site is abandoned or reclaimed, though,
there is
another problem. An abundance of rocks could make harvesting
impossible, or
at least expensive.

The challenges don't end there.

While studies have shown the net energy yield of switchgrass
ethanol is
about six times better than corn ethanol, there is no consensus on
how best
to covert it into sugars for fuel. Nor are there commercial-scale
refineries
or a distribution network for the fuel once it's made.

Because switchgrass has a much lower energy potential than coal,
Skousen
says, it won't be economically feasible to ship it far. That means
refineries will have to be close to the fields.

"We're a little concerned,'' he says, "but that's a problem
everywhere.''

Still, he adds, this is a possibility worth exploring.