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Few people summon the image of silent-screen, mustache-twisting villainy the way Don Blankenship can. Blankenship is the chairman and CEO of Massey Energy, the self-described “largest producer of Central Appalachian coal and America's 4th largest producer of coal by revenues." In West Virginia, Blankenship is often the public face of the coal industry—a role he relishes. His company’s sins include: the heavy patronage of Brent D. Benjamin’s candidacy for the state Supreme Court (a seat he eventually filled), a sordid tale fictionalized in John Grisham’s The Appeal; the contamination of several Mingo County, WV towns’ groundwater supply with more than 1 billion gallons of coal slurry; the contamination of 75 miles of waterway in Martin County, Kentucky with 300 million gallons of coal slurry; the construction of two coal-processing silos 150 feet from the Marsh Fork Elementary School (the same school sits 400 yards from Massey’s 2.8 billion-gallon coal waste pond [see picture]); leading the industry in the practice of mountaintop removal—a form of conventional strip-mining, where native forests are clear cut, dynamite is used to blast away as much as 600 feet of mountaintop, and the resulting waste is dumped into neighboring valleys and streams (see contamination issues). Blasting operations are allowed within 300 feet of area homes (see blast-related damage issues), and are permitted to operate 24-hours a day.
In the recent past, the Massey Energy Company held its annual company picnic in Charleston, WV. Kanawha Boulevard, one of the city’s main thoroughfares, was closed for four days while carnival rides were set-up and Magic Island—a city park—was leased to Massey for $7,200. The event, which regularly draws more than 10,000 of Massey’s employees, was closed to the general public.
The annual picnic is more than company softball and carnival fare. There is usually an agitprop element to the festivities, and this year is no different. Blankenship has promised to teach event attendees “how environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your job.”
This year, the company picnic returns to Logan County in southern West Virginia. The event is open to the public, but you must register online for tickets to attend. Headliners for the Labor Day “Friends of America” rally include country star and famous dwarf John Rich (half of the former “Big and Rich”—not the “big” half); Hank Williams, Jr. and his belt-buckle; and the pundit Muppet Sean Hannity. Man-goat rocker/survivalist Ted Nugent will emcee the event. Spread-eagle rhetoric is expected to flow like game jerky recipes from Nugent’s pen.