Over the past few weeks it has been all over the news that President Obama and the EPA were working on revoking a permit for a West Virginia mining company doing surface mining. On the surface, this looked like a good move. If you take a little closer look, though, you’ll see from a sustainability development standpoint, the revocation of this permit will likely do much more harm than good.
On a very basic level, sustainability development considers the economic, environmental, and social impact of actions taken. The action in this case is the revocation of a mining permit in West Virginia. Yes, from an environmental standpoint, the revocation of a mining permit is a good thing. The waters and air will be a cleaner – no argument from me. But, economically and socially, the move is much more harmful.
Considering the economic impact, millions of dollars in infrastructure for a company who played within the rules are down the pipe. Millions of tax dollars are not going to come into the government. Also, I don’t know if many of you have been to the hills of West Virginia, but for the miners, there’s not a lot of other work to be had. Economically and socially, the miners’ lives just got a lot worse.
I’m not one to advocate actions that harm the environment. On the contrary, I realize that we have only limited resources at hand, and that we have to take steps to ensure that these resources are here for future generations. I don’t just stop at considerations for environmental resources, though. Economic and social resources are resources, too. How do you think an unemployed coal miner struggling to keep food on the table and a roof overhead feels about being out of a job because of a political statement unilaterally undertaken by the President? I personally value the sanctity of life.
President Obama and the governmental agencies he used to by-pass congress need to realize that being sustainable is a lot different from being environmental. Being sustainable means caring for your natural resources, true, but more importantly, it means caring for your human resources: the people that make up this great country.
