It’s Good Reclamation and That’s the Truth
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It’s Good Reclamation and That’s the Truth
By Angela Martin,
TMRA Environmental Committee Chair
These days, it seems so difficult to know truth from fiction. When I was growing up, Walter Cronkite was the god of information. If Mr. Cronkite said it on the six o’clock news, you could take it to the bank. In today’s world though, whoever speaks loudest (and by that, I mean whoever Tweets the most) must be telling the truth. And yet, way too often, that loudest voice regarding coal mining is FAKE NEWS!
I’m sure some of you have had the good fortune to have hosted tours of your mines over the years. You can’t help but grin when a gaggle of 10-yr olds are awestruck by the enormity of a haul truck or a dragline. But sometimes it’s the big kids (and by that, I mean adults) who are struck with amazement – their worlds altered by the truth, their beliefs and previously acquired “knowledge” that coal mining is “bad for the environment” are hit smack in the face by Reality. They gaze out both sides of the bus – dumbstruck – “This was all mined??” You take a moment to let it soak in. Then, while trying to suppress the sound of pride, you answer…”Yes, it was.”
Mining gets a bad rap. It’s okay. We have big shoulders. We can take it. We do our best to educate those around us that will listen. We let the reclamation do the talking for us when we can. (Too bad it can’t Tweet.) Perhaps all those middle schoolers who have toured our mines will remember what they saw and over time, disseminate truth about our reclamation. Certainly, all the teachers who have participated in the TMRA Teacher Workshops are helping spread the word.
OSM began their Reclamation Awards program in 1987, in order to recognize mining companies that have achieved the most exemplary coal mining reclamation in the nation. Texas coal mines have received that honor 13 times since then. Texas coal mines have achieved Phase III bond release on over 30,000 acres in just the past 10 years and over 67,000 acres altogether. We do things in reclamation because they are the right thing to do for our environment, for the land, for habitat, for rivers and streams…not for awards and not because we were told to do them. In this era of Fake News, we can hold our heads up high knowing that our legacy of reclamation will speak for itself long after we’re gone…and it speaks the Truth.
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