National Coal Coping with NIMBYism, Accompanied by A Heavy Dose of Extremist Environmental Obstructionism.

A few observations and questions about the wailing, and rending of garments over the proposed Brushy Pond Coal Mine, if I may.

Not an inconsequential amount of pollution is caused by marine engines, and marinas. There are more than 1,000,000 households in Alabama that have some type of watercraft. I may be proved wrong, but as this increasing, collective, en masse pollution continues, unceasingly, as it has for decades, where is the misplaced self-righteous indignation, where are the petitions to halt boating in our precious lake? I do hope the residents near Brushy Pond have not found their new vigor for environmental obstructionism only when it is in their self-interest. Surely they will soon endorse a moratorium on marine engines and the marinas, for the good of the environment, to save and protect the water quality. Surely they are not participating in selective environmentalism. Pollution is pollution, no matter the scope or size. Just as there being no difference between a white lie, and black one; they're both lies.

The Problem of Marine Engine Pollution;

Environmental Effects of Marinas and Boating Activities;

High toxicity in the water;

Among the greatest contributors of hydrocarbons (HC) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) pollution in the United States.

Secondly, where was the three-ring circus, that now belligerently tries to suck the pragmatism, logic, and objectivism from the room, when developers, realtors, speculators, were building, adding-on to, or demolishing to make way for, the nice homes on the lake? Not to mention the infrastructure to get there? Was the community rife with anxiety for the possibility a critical habitat for endangered or threatened plant and animals may have been harmed in the creation of McMansions that dot the lake? Was the construction site continually monitored for environmental prohibitions? Did you plant replacement trees for the ones you destroyed?

Moreover, when you purchased your lot, or existing home, adjacent to, or on top of another surface or mineral owner, did they accuse you of lowering the value of their coal reserves? Did they exclaim that building, and living in a home on top of their minerals, or next door to, could severely inhibit their future plans to exercise their private property rights and mine their natural resources? Did the owners of the surface and mineral rights author letters to the newspapers blanketed with distortions, fear-mongering, and illogical declarations?

If you answered no to all the questions in the prior paragraph, I beseech you to write, or call, your neighbor, or whomever may own the mineral rights beneath your land, and thank them; thank them for respecting your private property rights.