All the news that’s fit to holler!
Understand, freight trucks do about 99% of non-weather-related damage. And they only pay for an average of 35% of maintenance costs. In fact, "One fully loaded 18-wheeler does the same damage to a road as 9600 cars." So nearly all of the road damage is being caused by corporations shipping goods over roads that we are paying for.
A study of frack water's effect on WV forests ended tragically: "Forest Service researchers sprayed more than 80,000 gallons of fracking fluid on a half-acre area of hardwood trees in the Fernow Experimental Forest, a plot within the Monongahela Forest in West Virginia. They immediately observed 'severe damage and mortality of ground vegetation' and, 10 days later, premature leaf drop. Two years after spraying, 56 percent of the large trees were dead."
Some courts have addressed this issue. For instance, the NH Supreme Court has noted that "The obstruction by a custodial parent of visitation between a child and the noncustodial parent may, if continuous, constitute behavior so inconsistent with the best interests of the child as to raise a strong possibility that the child will be harmed." But others, including our courts here in WV are inconsistent. And by and large legislators have failed to act.
No longer do Robber Barons need to plunder villages with swords and arms. With regulatory and/or judicial complicity, the extraction industry can jab a siphon into our veins and drain our lives away. They simply appropriate our air and water, and transform them into wealth for themselves. In essence, Extraction Debt is the modern weapon of corporate pillage. Launch it at a community, and watch the fiscal destruction that follows.
Be aware that whenever you hear propaganda about "EPA overreach," you can be reasonably assured that the whining is originating from business interests who quite literally value your life and the lives of your children less than you do. Resource Barons prefer to frame the discussion as "higher costs" (for them) rather than accusing the EPA of valuing your life too much. When businesses and politicians talk about "EPA Overreach," they're looking at what profits can be made where your life or your child's life is just a statistic.
We know that in McDowell county, for example, residents are literally paying those socialized costs with their lives. Profits are private. The average life expectancy there, due to coal extraction, is far lower than average. Each of them are paying an average of a decade or more. Wealth pours up; it doesn't trickle down. Extraction execs pocket their sacrifice in the form of profit.
Falsely arrested, and thrown naked in jail:
They're having the same problems in Pennsylvania:
Some extractors are not paying proper royalty payments, are filing fraudulent affidavits claiming mineral rights heirs are unfindable, and are using deceptive language in lease modifications and offers.
"Right to Work" laws have nothing do with ensuring your actual right to work. It's one of those terrible doublespeak names that enshrines its strawman argument conveniently within the name of the legislation. The truth is that laws like these could just as easily---and perhaps more accurately---be called "Right to Freeload."
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