April 5 marked the 4th anniversary of the deadly explosion at then-Massey Coal’s Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, WV. As a way to remember, the WMMT family recorded these short portraits of the 29 men who so needlessly lost their lives. Their stories come from the Report to the Governor by the Governor’s […]
March 9 & 13 marked the anniversary of the Scotia Mine Disaster in Letcher County, KY in 1976, and April 5 was the 4th year since 29 miners were killed at Upper Big Branch in West Virginia. As part of a commemoration of these events, WMMT looked back at the nation’s worst mine disaster – […]
For several months now, buses full of retired UMWA miners from all over the country have regularly converged upon St. Louis for protests against Peabody Energy and Arch Coal. Peabody and Arch transferred responsibility for the guaranteed lifetime health and pension benefits owed to some 22,000 miners, retired miners, and their families into a third […]
In Appalachia, the total area of surface mined land is estimated to be around 1.5 million acres. Much of this land is non-forested and unused. But the American Chestnut Foundation and Green Forest Works are two organizations developing an innovative approach — planting hardwood trees including the threatened American Chestnut — for making these vast […]
