West Virginia Coal Tourism?

Bluefield Daily Telegraph: The ongoing Spike TV series “Coal” is helping rekindle a level of coalfield-based tourism not seen in the region since the release of the 1999 motion “October Sky.”

With millions of viewers tuning in each week to watch the unscripted McDowell County-based reality series, we aren’t surprised to hear of renewed tourism interest in the county’s coalfields. Local officials are already reporting a new wave of visitors to the area, including some who are hoping to learn more about the region’s coal industry. These tourists will be looking for places to visit, and for people with knowledge about the coal industry to talk to.

We hope McDowell County officials are ready to seize upon any influx of tourism interest generated by the television show. There are still three more episodes to air. The same can be said for the ongoing interest in Cape Coalwood, and the true story of the Rocket Boys of McDowell County.

With both a movie, and now a television series to brag about, there is certainly a lot of tourism potential in McDowell County — and most of it, including the story of the Rocket Boys — is related to coal. While the television series “Coal” could be an emerging tourism boon, a looming big-screen torpedo is threatening to deliver an unwelcomed and unnecessary black eye to the region’s historic coalfields.

It seems that environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been busy filming a new documentary that will be hitting theaters this month. The movie targets the process known as mountaintop mining removal. The documentary, called “The Last Mountain,” is the product of several dozen trips to West Virginia over the years by Kennedy, a longtime opponent of mountaintop mining removal.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Kennedy calls the forthcoming documentary a fair-minded exploration of the facts aimed at educating and outraging the public. Outraging? That doesn’t sound very balanced. We are told the coal industry is granted only a cameo in the movie, with only a brief defense of coal mining offered by West Virginia Coal Association President Bill Raney.

If Kennedy wanted to be truly fair, he should have allocated equal time to the industry in his new documentary. Instead, the movie argues that the practice of mountaintop mining removal is so destructive and harmful that it should be illegal. This doesn’t sound like a fair conclusion, but Kennedy is entitled to his opinion in “The Last Mountain.”

Fortunately, we still have “Coal” on Spike TV if we really want to get an accurate, unscripted and unbiased opinion of the region’s coal industry. And no movie ticket is required.