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Interview with John Adams
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
John Adams has been mining coal in southwest Virginia for almost 40 years. I met him in the hallway outside the auditorium where the Big Stone Gap hearing was being held. He wore an ‘I Love Mountains’ pin proudly fastened next to the ‘Friends of Coal’ logo on the black t-shirt he wore over his orange miner’s stripes. After the angry altercations at the Charleston hearing, I was apprehensive, but Adams’ friendly, lined face reminded me of a favorite uncle; he seemed approachable and kind and I asked if we could talk for a few minutes. “What, you wanna talk to a dirty ol’ strip miner?” Totally thrown, I stumbled a bit. “Nah, I’m just teasing ya treehugger,” he said, “We’re all friends here, and if I got a problem with my friend, I’m gonna sit down and talk to him about it. What do you wanna know?”
Mr. Adams firmly believes that mountain top removal doesn’t harm the environment. “Environmental development, that’s what were doing,” he said. “The hills around here are so steep, your options are either to strip and level, or build out a place at a huge construction cost.” To him, the land leveled by mountain top removal offers significant opportunity for economic development. As we’re talking about this, he stops another Friend of Coal leaving the hospitality room. “Hey, tell this reporter about those subdivisions! High dollar, ain’t they? For doctors and lawyers, rich folks, right?” His friend nodded, “Oh yeah, definitely nice places up there. Reclaimed that site, you should look at that one. Wild turkeys and deer all around, too.” Adams says “that’s the problem, right there. You only bring people up here and show ’em the worst part of the worst mine they got. You don’t show ’em where we’ve turned the site into something good.”
If he hadn’t been turned into a miner, Mr. Adams said he would have been a paleontologist. His prized possession is a T-Rex claw found in Montana. He speaks of it in a big-fish-story kind of way, describing its curve and gleam and throwing in a few little-known facts about the awesome dinosaur. But, with what he calls a “barely high school” education, paleontology eluded him and mining kind of absorbed him; his family had done it, and with little alternate options, he fell into it as well. “Sure we should have diversified our economy,” he said, “but why didn’t we think of that 40 years ago?” Now it is how it is, and there are scant alternate options to turn to. Mr. Adams took his pay stub out of the pocket of his blue coveralls and ripped off the perforated edges. “I’ll show you this, and you can write this down.” The year-to-date total of his salary is $68, 307.13, and is flanked by a respectable 401-k and 12 remaining vacation days. “You tell me one other place around here I can make that. Economically depressed? Maybe, but its the coal that’s keepin’ us going. When you’re getting everything in the world taken away from you, like we feel, you’re gonna get angry. Without something to drive our economy, our economy don’t run.”
I ask what he will do when the coal runs out, when there is nothing left to mine. “Everything is finite,” he says, “but if its gonna run out anyway, why not just go ahead and get it all?” He sees the government’s attempt to regulate mining as simply an attack on personal rights, and says “Mr. Obama wants to take everything away from us.” We talk a bit more and head off in separate directions. Registration is starting for those who want to speak at the hearing, and he wants to get in line. He gives me a one-track CD called “Hey Tree Hugger” and tells me with a genuine smile and squeeze of the shoulder that I should give it a sharp listen. He points out a young miner named Doug and tells me he’s a gentlemen, single, and got twenty head of horses and a nice little farm, and that I should definitely introduce myself to him. Later on, right before the hearing starts, I’m standing outside the backdoor right past the “Tree Hugger’ hospitality room. Adams come out with his coat slung over his arm and a bowl of chili and cornbread. “Leaving before the party starts?” I ask. “That’s what happens when you’re a papaw; somebody always needs you.” He throws me a wink and gestures to his bowl: “We got better sodas in our room, but your side definitely has better chili.”
