A federal judge found merit in a case filed by retired coal miners alleging that CONSOL Energy engaged in a decades-long scheme to rob them of lifetime health benefits that were promised as a condition of employment (Karen Kasmauski | Getty Images)

Several retired coal miners are feeling validated this month as a federal judge found merit in their case alleging that CONSOL Energy engaged in a decades-long scheme to rob them of lifetime health benefits for them and their spouses that were promised as a condition of employment.

The coal miners who brought the case all worked at CONSOL Energy mines between 1969 and 2014. Unlike many of their colleagues, they abstained from joining a union to work in the CONSOL mines, largely due to promises made by leaders at CONSOL that if the workers stayed non-union, they would earn higher wages and receive lifetime health benefits that were competitive with those offered by the United Mine Workers of America.

Thousands of miners took CONSOL operators at their word that their benefits would remain as long as they served the company for at least 10 years or worked until they were 55 years old. The promises of lifetime health benefits were repeated time and time again — at human resources fairs, informational workshops for employees, company picnics and more — to workers across different states and different mining operations.

But in 2014, as many of the miners were forced to retire in preceding years due to downsizing at the mines and a sale of some CONSOL properties to Murray Energy, those promises were proven to be false.

Miners — who were told numerous times without question that their health coverage would persist for them and their spouses into retirement — began getting letters saying that coverage was coming to an end.

Allan “A.J.” Jack, a 75-year-old former coal miner who retired in 2009 after spending 18 of his 39 year career underground for CONSOL in Pennsylvania, remembers getting the initial letter in the fall of 2014 telling him the benefits would expire in 2019. Less than a year later, he received another letter from CONSOL, this one saying both he and his wife’s medical, dental and prescription insurance coverage would end on Dec. 31, 2015.

“I was devastated. I mean, you retire and you just know that you’re going to have this,” Jack said in an interview with West Virginia Watch. “Why would anybody tell you time and time again that you were going to have these benefits and then take them away? It really is devastating.”

Jack was initially told of the lifetime health benefits in an orientation in 1991. He was working at another mine in Pennsylvania at the time but — based largely on the promises of lifetime benefits, which were already guaranteed to miners affiliated with the UMWA, and a 401(k), which union miners did not qualify for — decided to leave his job and begin work at the Enlow Fork mine in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Throughout his nearly two decades with CONSOL, not one manager mentioned to him that the company reserved the right to terminate the retiree benefits at any time.

According to the order issued on Sept. 30 by Senior U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr., the fact that CONSOL executives repeatedly failed to tell employees working for the company in different states, at different mining operations and in different departments this fact was a clear misrepresentation of benefits and therefore a violation of the company’s fiduciary obligations.

Terry Prater, a 69-year-old who worked for CONSOL for 15 years in Kentucky, unexpectedly retired from his job on Sept. 30, 2014. He showed up to work for his evening shift that day like he usually did. In the middle of his shift, Gerald Kowzan — who worked in human resources for CONSOL — addressed employees, telling them that anyone who retired on or after Oct. 1 would not be receiving their promised lifetime health, dental and prescription insurance benefits. A coworker asked what would happen if they retired before midnight. Kowzan told them if they did, they could get the benefits for five years.

“There were six of us there on the night shift who had put the time in and were of age to retire. So at 11 o’clock, we hollered in the foreman’s radio. We told him to come and get us, we’re retiring,” Prater said. “I got my insurance and kept it for 15 months, then I got the letter that it was going to be taken away. Just like that and it was gone.”

A ‘union-busting scheme’

Sam Petsonk, a labor rights attorney who litigated the CONSOL case along with attorneys from the nonprofit legal advocacy organization Mountain State Justice, said the repeated lies told by CONSOL to its employees were clearly part of an overarching scheme to keep the mines from being unionized.

This was despite attempts at those mines by workers over decades to gain union recognition and join the UMWA.

“Anyone who’s lived in Appalachia over the last 30 years has watched this union-busting scheme unfold. I mean, many miners wanted to organize a union at these operations,” Petsonk said. “I grew up in these communities. I watched the parents of many of my friends choose to work in non-union jobs because of misrepresentations just like this. An entire generation of wealth that our miners thought they had earned is now gone because of these broken promises.”

Before beginning to offer the promise that CONSOL employees would have lifetime benefits, the company was a “wall-to-wall” union operation, Petsonk said. The misrepresentations were an attempt to compete with union operations, where workers were guaranteed more protections and legally mandated to receive those lifetime benefits through an act of congress.

“The judge found and agreed that Bobby Brown, the CEO of CONSOL [at the time] directed this scheme to defraud thousands of Appalachian coal miners out of joining the union, out of gaining those benefits,” Petsonk said. “That’s what the judge found, that is a finding of fact in this record.”

And the misrepresentations weren’t the only union-busting activities happening at the CONSOL mines. Other attempts were more direct and explicit — and they worked.

Jack remembers colleagues of his at the Enlow-Bailey mining complex beginning work to unionize around 1992. There were picket lines, walkouts and other traditional unionizing attempts. Jack said they had things thrown at them. Four of his tires were slashed. He and his colleagues were threatened and told that unionizing would lower their wages and mean worse health insurance.

“We retired thinking that way, thinking, ‘man, we did have better pay and we’re going to have all these great retirement benefits,’” Jack said. “Well, in the end we ended up with nothing. They gave us nothing they told us they would and they left us all without.”

Jack said it was clear that the attempts by CONSOL to remain non-union was a scheme because of how widespread the lies were told.

Sitting in a courtroom in 2021, when the case went to trial, he remembers looking around at other former miners he’d never met. Most worked in other states, many in different parts of the coal mining operations. All of them, however, had been fed the same lines about lifetime benefits throughout their careers, and now all of them were going without those promised benefits.

“I’m from Pennsylvania. There were some there from West Virginia, from Kentucky. And I just said to the judge, ‘isn’t it amazing that I never saw any of these people before? That we don’t know each other? But we all were told the same thing by the same people,” Jack recalls. “I mean, what are the odds of that? It was clear that it was planned to tell everybody the same thing and to just renege on the whole thing, right?”

What the case means and what’s next for the affected miners

The case brought to the federal court was not an all around win. Only two of the seven plaintiffs — including Prater — were successful in proving their cases against CONSOL, and those successes were only granted in part. Others were thrown out due to limitations with the claims process, missed deadlines and other technical reasons, as well as not enough clear evidence proving that they individually were misled by the company’s leadership.

Overall, at least 3,000 miners were affected by the misrepresentations and lies from CONSOL operators over decades. Petsonk said that while it’s good that the court saw clear merit in the case and the claims made within it, much work remains to get justice for all the miners. In last month’s order, the judge wrote that the claims would likely need to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

But that’s nearly impossible, Petsonk said.

Now, he and his colleagues are reassessing and moving forward with filing an appeal to last month’s order in the hopes that the case can turn into a class action proceeding for all those affected.

“We’re very grateful to the judge for finding merit in this case [but] we’re going to ask the appeals court to review, to see this as a class action,” Petsonk said.

In the meantime, however, those affected like Prater and Jack will remain in limbo.

While the judge ruled partially in favor of Prater, his benefits won’t kick back in until all appeals are adjudicated. And while the judge agreed that Jack proved his claims against CONSOL, his claim came too late to entitle him to a remedy.

For Jack, who was grateful to the judge for agreeing with his claims, continuing to go without the benefits is having real repercussions in his and his wife’s lives.

Throughout Jack’s last 25 years of employment, he never missed a single day of work. He took pride in what he did and believed those above him who promised his commitment would be worth it.

And coal mining, as well as aging, is hard on the body. Both Prater, Jack and their wives are paying thousands of dollars a year for out-of-pocket medical expenses that they never planned for.

In the years since their promised lifetime benefits were pulled, it’s been difficult for Jack and his wife to enjoy their retirement.

“When you’re working that long, especially for a coal mine, it’s three different shifts, it’s weekends, it’s long hours and a lot of things that you want to do in life, you sort of pull off until you retire,” Jack said. “Hopefully, at that time, your health is good enough to do those things. And so now we want to make plans to maybe travel a little bit, do the things we weren’t able to do when we were younger, but then these medical expenses come up that you never thought you’d have to pay. Those plans you have, you’re putting them aside again, and this time until when?”

This story is republished from West Virginia Watch, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

A new federal rule is aimed at reducing coal miners’ exposure to silica dust, a leading cause of black lung disease. (Getty Images)

This Labor Day, as a new federal rule is being rolled out to prevent deadly black lung disease in miners, Christopher Williamson is remembering the coal miners who fought for the creation of his agency and who weren’t afforded the protections that current and future workers hopefully will.

Williamson, assistant secretary for the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, is a native of Mingo County in southern West Virginia which is separated from Kentucky by the Big Sandy River. Since he entered his federal position about two years ago, he’s focused heavily on developing and now? implementing the new silica rule that was finalized earlier this year.

“I come from the southern coalfields. I know mining. This issue is not one that needed to be explained to me … it was a priority for me from the moment I got confirmed and walked in the door at MSHA,” Williamson said. “Looking and reflecting on it in the context of Labor Day — especially in the context of all the labor history in West Virginia that I’m very familiar with and happened in my backyard — all these miners in West Virginia fought for my agency to be created, fought for these regulations that are in place, fought for the Mine Act to be put in place.”

When the Federal Mine Safety & Health Act of 1977 was passed, Williamson said, it’s main goal was made clear in the first sentence on its first page: “the first priority and concern of all in the coal or other mining industry must be the health and safety of its most precious resource — the miner,” the act reads.

Today, Williamson said, the new silica rule will, hopefully, do just that.

The new rule — initially proposed in July 2023 — implements for the first time ever a separate exposure limit for silica dust in mines, cuts the maximum exposure limit to 50 micrograms per cubic meter for a full-shift and creates an “action level” for when exposure comes at 25 micrograms per cubic meter for a full shift. It also establishes uniform exposure monitoring and control requirements for mine operators to follow as well as increasing sampling requirements. It was finalized in April and most of it began to go into effect in June.

The rule’s implementation comes more than five decades after the federal government first recommended limiting silica exposure among workers based on a wide body of evidence and years after other industries adopted similar standards to enforce the exposure limits of silica.

It also comes as younger coal miners in the region are being diagnosed with the disease at rates unseen by their predecessors due to a lack of easily accessible coal and an increase in the amount of silica-rich sandstone they have to dig through to reach what remains.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 20% of coal miners in central Appalachia are suffering from black lung — the highest rate detected for the disease in more than 25 years. One in 20 of those coal miners are living with the most severe form of the condition, and fatalities tied to black lung are steadily increasing in central Appalachia faster than the rest of the country.

“Unfortunately, there’s been too many generations of miners in West Virginia and other places that have had to sacrifice their lungs just to support their families,” Wiliamson said. “This rule is a huge step forward to try to prevent those types of things from happening.”

The rule grants MSHA, for the first time, the authority to issue citations at mines that report elevated levels of silica dust without efforts to remediate. When levels are too high, the agency can issue a withdrawal order, meaning workers must leave the mine until the levels drop and corrective actions are taken. Williamson said this alone is an improvement that will change how the agency is able to perform its oversight responsibilities.

“We have all these enforcement tools that we can’t use,” Williamson said. “For the first time, we’re going to be able to use the full suite of MSHA’s enforcement authority to protect miners from exposure to silica, and that’s huge. We hope we don’t have to use those things, but we will if we have to.”

The rule isn’t without its challenges, no matter how unlikely they may be to take hold.

In Congress, an appropriations bill for the federal Department of Labor is awaiting consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives. It contains a rider that, if adopted, would halt the use of any Department of Labor funding for the implementation of the rule. That bill previously passed a House subcommittee and the appropriations committee. The Senate’s version of the same appropriations bill, however, does not contain the same language.

Coal mining advocates have decried the efforts to stop the funding, which would complicate enforcement of the rule. Even if it’s not adopted — which is likely — they’ve said efforts by Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., to include the language is “unconscionable, indefensible and frankly insulting” to the nation’s miners.

For Williamson, until something affecting the rule is actually passed, the efforts in Congress are little more than background noise. Officials at MSHA, he said, are staying busy educating those in the mining community about the new policies and ensuring resources are available to become compliant before enforcement starts next year.

“I appreciate the process and I appreciate that [Congress goes] through it, but we’re full steam ahead. We’re implementing this thing,” Williamson said. “We’ve got a mission to complete, we’ve got miners to protect, and unfortunately, there are too many that are out there that need this rule and need these health protections. We’re not going to sit around and wait. We’re moving full steam ahead.”

This story is republished from West Virginia Watch, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

Gov. Jim Justice stands with his family — daughter Jill, wife Cathy and son Jay — at his final State of the State address in Charleston, W.Va., on Jan. 10, 2024. (Office of the Gov. Jim Justice)

Federal attorneys asking a court to hold 23 of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s family-owned coal companies in contempt for nonpayment of health and safety fines entered a filing this week saying the companies shouldn’t have entered into a payment plan if they knew they couldn’t honor it.

The filing, entered Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia and first reported by West Virginia MetroNews, comes in response to a memorandum filed last week by Justice family attorneys. In that filing, they contend that the companies in question are too broke to pay the nearly $600,000 they still owe to the government.

In Tuesday’s filing, the federal attorneys say this claim has been made with no evidence and, as such, should not be considered as a valid defense against putting the companies in contempt. Further, the companies should not have entered into a settlement agreement in 2020 if they knew they would not be able to pay what they owe on the set schedule.

“[The companies] willingly and knowingly entered into the payment plan and consent judgment in this case, representing to the government and the Court that it would comply with the payment plan in the consent judgment,” the filing reads. “However, they now claim that they faced financial difficulties at the time of the consent judgment that preclude them from being able to pay. If [the companies] knew they could not comply with the consent judgment at the time of execution, they should have said so.”

In 2023, according to the filing, representatives for the Justice companies told the government that they “had difficulty” making payments, but that the situation would be remedied by borrowing money from another business to catch up on payments. Federal representatives agreed at that time to adjust the payment plan.

“Yet once again, [the companies] failed to comply with the adjusted payment plan. [They] have not provided any explanation for their noncompliance,” the federal attorneys write. “Between August 2023 and?present, [the companies] did not communicate to the government an inability to pay on the modified schedule, nor did they seek alternative payment arrangements with the government.”

In a memorandum earlier this month asking the court to hold the companies in contempt, federal attorneys provided dozens of emails sent between Aug. 14, 2023 and July 9, 2024 reminding the companies of their debts and the past due amounts.

Responses from the companies’ attorneys were few, even as the companies fell months behind on their payments.

“Instead of notifying the government about their alleged inability to comply with the consent judgment, [the companies] have kept their proverbial heads in the sand,” the federal attorneys wrote in Tuesday’s filing. “Even when the government notified Defendants in July 2024 that the government would have no choice but to seek action with the Court unless payment in full was made, [they] offered no explanation or response.”

In last week’s memorandum from the Justice companies, attorneys argued that it would be improper to hold the companies in contempt since their financial struggles are not self-inflicted and have existed since they agreed upon the payment plan. They said the economic downturn in the coal industry is to blame for the financial challenges at the companies. The federal government, they continue, was aware of these challenges.

Since payments were being made — albeit sporadically — from 2020 on, the feds argued Tuesday that this defense shouldn’t stand.

Also in last week’s memorandum, Justice family attorneys requested discovery for the ongoing case. While alleging a dire financial situation at the companies, they did not provide any exhibits or evidence to back up this claim in their filing.

In Tuesday’s filing, federal attorneys say that the request for discovery is “unnecessary and a delay tactic.” The companies, they say, are responsible for proving they are unable to meet their financial obligations and evidence underscoring that claim can be presented at a hearing for the case if it exists.

The nearly $600,000 the federal government is seeking to collect comes from a decade’s worth of unpaid health and safety fines at Justice-owned coal mines. The debt, at one point, totaled about $5.13 million from hundreds of violations incurred since 2014.

The government initially filed suit against the Justices in 2019 to collect the money. In 2020, the Justice-owned companies and the government entered into an agreement where the family would make monthly payments to pay off the debt by March 2024. The debt, however, was not paid off.

Justice has maintained that he is not at all directly involved in his family’s business empire, leaving the companies in the leadership of his children despite refusing to enter most of his businesses into a blind trust.

He said earlier this month that, “if there’s a problem, it gets taken care of … We may be a few minutes late to the fire, but we always show up at the fire.”

Last week, however, Jay Justice — Jim Justice’s son and president of several of the family’s companies — failed to “show up at the fire.”

A federal judge in Alabama filed an order last Thursday finding Jay Justice and Bluestone Coke — of which he is president — in civil contempt.

The order, according to Inside Climate News, came after Jay Justice failed to attend a hearing — despite being ordered to do so by the federal court — for a lawsuit alleging the coking plant is responsible for polluting groundwater and rivers and violating the Clean Water Act.

“[Jay Justice and Bluestone Coke] have violated three separate court orders requiring them to produce responses and negotiate, in good faith, dates for depositions,” the order reads.

The story is republished from West Virginia Watch, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

The Greenbrier Resort is seen on Aug. 23, 2024 in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. Portions of the resort, including the hotel, were scheduled to go to public auction this week, but a deal struck between creditors and the governor’s family last week averted the foreclosure. (Chris Jackson | West Virginia Watch)

LEWISBURG, W.Va. — At Lewisburg’s Carnegie Hall, president and CEO Cathy Rennard watched with some anxiety earlier this month as news unfolded that The Greenbrier Hotel was facing foreclosure due to unpaid debts by its owners, Gov. Jim Justice and his family.

The hotel, a crucial part of The Greenbrier resort, which is Greenbrier County’s biggest employer and the largest tourist attraction in the region, was to be auctioned on the county courthouse steps just three days before Carnegie Hall was set to hold its largest annual fundraiser on the resort’s Chesapeake Lawn.

Rennard, no stranger to the nature of the Justices’ business dealings, was banking on at least one delay for the auction.

“I just kind of made a mental decision that I’m just going to walk on as if everything’s going to be all right, and it appears that it will be, for the moment,” Rennard said.

With days to spare last week, the auction was averted. The Justice companies last Thursday announced an agreement with Beltway Capital, which is associated with credit collection company McCormick 101 which bought the loan documents and deed of trust for the hotel from JPMorgan earlier this year.

Under the agreement, the Justice family is supposed to make a payment to Beltway Capital by Oct. 24. If the payment is made, then “all issues concerning The Greenbrier and Glade Springs are concluded.”

“We’ve cleared this [hurdle] now,” Rennard said of the news. “But yeah, now there’s another date looming.”

The Justice family still owes about $9.4 million on loans procured to purchase The Greenbrier in 2009. But those unpaid loans aren’t the only challenges facing the owners of the historic resort.

Louisiana-based bank First Guaranty is suing The Greenbrier Hotel Corporation — the company, owned by the Justices, that operates the resort — over nonpayment of a $35 million COVID-19 relief loan granted to the company in 2021. According to the lawsuit, there have been no payments made on that loan to date.

And perhaps most pressing is the fate of The Greenbrier employees’ health insurance.

According to a letter sent to workers last week, The Greenbrier Hotel Corporation is at least four months and $2.4 million delinquent — with another $1.2 million soon to be due — in premium contributions to the employee health fund. The company, according to the letter sent by attorneys representing the Amalgamated National Health Fund, has been taking money out of employees’ paychecks without remitting it to the fund.

Insurance coverage was initially going to be suspended for the employees on Aug. 27. When the auction was canceled, however, a union representative said that coverage would extend to Aug. 31.

In a news briefing on Aug. 22, Justice said there was “no possible way” that employees would go without health insurance and that claims that contributions were delinquent were untrue.

“And I’ll promise you to the good Lord above that insurance payments have been made and were being made on a regular basis just like we’ve done in the past in many ways,” Justice said.

In an email sent Monday, Ronald Richman, an attorney representing the health fund, confirmed that The Greenbrier Hotel Corporation is still four months delinquent on its mandated payments.

Justice, who is running a Republican campaign for the U.S. Senate, has remained steadfast that none of the challenges being brought against his family’s companies — including those facing The Greenbrier, a move by the federal government to put 23 of the family’s coal companies in contempt for nonpayment of health and safety fines and numerous lawsuits across several states looking to collect on unpaid fines, taxes and debts — are legitimate.

Instead, he’s said repeatedly that they’re the result of political attacks waged against him by Democrats who are threatened by the reality of him winning a seat in the Senate and flipping the body red.

‘We just need good, solid ownership’

Rennard, with Carnegie Hall, grew up in the Greenbrier’s shadow in White Sulphur Springs, and the hotel has always been part of her life, she said. Her father and grandfather practiced dentistry at the hotel’s clinic. She spent holiday dinners in the resort’s halls and celebrated numerous special evenings in the ballrooms.

For most of its history, The Greenbrier was owned by Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and its successor, CSX Incorporated. CSX put the hotel into bankruptcy in 2009. Court records indicated the company lost more than $90 million over five years of its operation, including $35 million in 2008.

Despite the financial challenges, Rennard said under CSX ownership, the hotel was always a source of pride for the area. There was “lots of angst” around it changing hands when the hotel went bankrupt about 15 years ago.

But when Justice purchased the resort in May 2009, she said, people in the community felt good about a fellow West Virginian “with skin in the game” buying it. Now, she said, it’s obvious the Justice companies have been through some “rocky times.”

And there’s no question that the hotel has some “maintenance issues,” like painting, that need to be addressed, she said. Many of The Greenbrier’s regular customers have noticed a decline in the facility, according to Rennard.

“I am so pro-Greenbrier,” Rennard said. “This county and this state needs The Greenbrier, and needs The Greenbrier to be in tiptop operating shape, and needs to restore that pride that the employee base once had about working there and being there.

“I’m hopeful that we’re going to be able to circle back around to that in one way or another, whether another hotelier comes in and ends up with it, that’d be great,” she said. “If the Justice family can get through this hard spot and come out on the other side and reinvest in the property and all that, that’s great, too. We just need good, solid ownership.”

For Kara Dense, president and CEO of the Greenbrier County Convention & Visitors Bureau, the possible sale of portions of The Greenbrier — the county’s “economic driver” —? caused some concern.

“But in the same realm, we also know that people were coming to the Greenbrier Valley as a destination and to The Greenbrier for over 200 years,” Dense said. “It’s not just some fly-by-night business type of thing. We have every confidence that everything will be taken care of and turn out well, and we will continue to market and do what we do: promote The Greenbrier, promote the destination as we always have.”

In 2022, tourists spent $382 million in Greenbrier County, which Dense said is likely the highest she’s seen in her 17 years at the CVB’s helm. The county ranked fifth of West Virginia’s 55 counties for tourism money spent that year, Dense said, citing the state’s annual economic impact study.

“[In] 2022 we were in the middle of a pandemic, and unlike a lot of destinations, our destination thrived during the pandemic, because we hit all of those areas that people were looking for as far as travel: wide open spaces, small towns, uncrowded areas,” Dense said. “The Greenbrier was a major part of that.”

The resort employs 1,500 to 2,000 workers, depending on the season.

In downtown Lewisburg, business owners say they depend on traffic from Greenbrier guests.

Sibel Mallory moved her boutique from Los Angeles to West Virginia, settling eventually in downtown Lewisburg before the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of her customers come from The Greenbrier, she said.

Lately she’s noticed fewer shuttles bringing guests from the resort to Lewisburg. The buses used to come a couple times a day to bring customers to restaurants and shops, she said, but that changed after the pandemic.

“I wish the Greenbrier owner — I don’t know Jim Justice but he’s the owner — would support us,” she said.

“We can’t cut off to his business,” she said, saying that the stores in Lewisburg aren’t competition for the resort but instead a local attraction for those who stay at it.

Shaye Gadowski, owner of A New Chapter Books on Washington Street, said the store’s customers are a mix of locals, visitors to the nearby New River Gorge National Park and from The Greenbrier. Downtown businesses rely on their neighbors, she said, something that was emphasized to her when a downtown Lewisburg art gallery closed last year.

“Even just having that space vacant for a bit, your foot traffic does change in that sense,” Gadowski said. “You don’t realize how much you rely on your neighbors until someone goes into the next phase of life. So we really do rely on each other.”

‘Pay your bills and let us be proud of how you do business’

Dense, with the Convention & Visitors Bureau, said people in the area are used to “disastrous things” happening.

Since Dense has been head of the CVB, in addition to the Greenbrier bankruptcy in 2009, the county suffered losses during the 2012 derecho and the 2016 floods, which killed 23 West Virginians. Fifteen of those who died were Greenbrier County residents. The bodies of two people swept away by the flood were found on The Greenbrier’s golf course.

“We’ve had some pretty dramatic things that have happened, disastrous things, and we’ve come through them,” Dense said. “And I think there’s just that feeling of hope, and knowing just the stability of the Greenbrier …

“We just feel like it’s always going to be there,” Dense said.

And, unlike other parts of West Virginia where out-of-state landowners can dominate, the Justices are members of the community, too.

Justice and his wife have opted to live full time in their Lewisburg home instead of the Governor’s Mansion, with the governor commuting to Charleston for work when necessary. This has brought criticism for Justice, who opponents have called a “part-time governor” due to his residency, his continued coaching of high school basketball teams and his insistence against putting most of his personal businesses in a blind trust despite saying his children are the ones responsible for running them.

But in Greenbrier County, the Justices are neighbors as well as the state’s first family. Rennard said her niece and nephew played on his basketball teams. When the 2016 floods hit, she recalls Justice and his wife, Cathy, driving a John Deere Gator to the makeshift command center in downtown White Sulphur Springs every night to check on response workers.

“His eyes would well up with tears, and I just saw a side of him after that that I had never seen before,” Rennard said. “So I think that’s kind of when I got a glimpse of his big heart.”

But two things can be true, Rennard said. It’s clear Justice cares about the community he lives in, but his family should also be responsible for paying its debts.

“He owes money. I think anybody who you ask around here is going to say, ‘pay your bills,’” Rennard said. “Pay your bills and let us be proud of how you do business.”

The recent challenges at The Greenbrier aren’t exactly unexpected for a business so big. Echoing a sentiment shared repeatedly by Justice, Rennard said it’s normal for businesses to have “bumps in the road.”

Now, she said, she hopes the family can focus on moving forward and catching up on its debts — not just for the community, but for themselves.

“I mean, they’re good people, and so I would like to see their family just be able to live and enjoy life,” Rennard said. “If that means handing The Greenbrier off to somebody else, great. If it means holding on to it and finding a way to really, really keep it moving forward and keep it in the shape that it should be in, then great.”

This story is republished from West Virginia Watch, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

Sen. Joe Manchin announced on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023, that he will not seek reelection for his U.S. Senate seat. (SenatorJoeManchin YouTube | screenshot)

Flanked by two bald eagle statues and several American flags, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced Thursday that he will not seek reelection to the U.S. Senate.

Instead, he said in the pre-recorded video, he will be touring the country in an effort to “unite the middle.”

“I believe in my heart of hearts that I’ve accomplished what I’ve set out to do in West Virginia,” Manchin said. “… What I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.”

Manchin, who was first elected to the Senate in 2010 after serving six years as West Virginia’s governor, has for months now — as he does often before election cycles – teased what his political future will look like.

Earlier this year, he appeared in several events hosted by No Labels, a political group interested in forming an independent ticket for the 2024 presidential election. This sparked rumors that the independent-minded Democrat, who has become one of the most powerful figures in a split Senate, would be exploring a possible run for president.

When asked Thursday if Manchin’s plans to travel the country were related to a potential presidential run, a spokesperson for his office said they “don’t have anything else to add” to the released statement.

A spokesperson for No Labels said in an emailed statement on Thursday that the Senate will be losing “a great leader” with Manchin’s departure. They wanted to “commend” Manchin for “stepping up” to start a national conversation about how to solve some of the nation’s largest issues outside of the traditional party system.

“Regarding our No Labels Unity presidential ticket, we are gathering input from our members across the country to understand the kind of leaders they would like to see in the White House,” the statement reads. “As we have said from the beginning, we will make a decision by early 2024 about whether we will nominate a Unity presidential ticket and who will be on it.”

Manchin has been vocal about his dislike of the two-party political system. In Thursday’s video, he emphasized the importance of putting “country before party” and how his efforts to do so while serving in the Senate have “landed [him] in hot water, but the fight to unite is worth it.”

In October, Manchin described himself to the Associated Press as being “fiscally responsible and socially compassionate.”

“I know our country isn’t as divided as Washington wants us to believe. We share common values of family, freedom, democracy, dignity and a belief that together we can overcome any challenge,” Manchin said in Thursday’s news release. “We need to take back America and not let this divisive hatred further pull us apart.”

Since 2022, when Democrats took control of the Senate on a 51-49 margin, Manchin as a centrist has been in the national spotlight, often serving as a swing vote on crucial yet partisan issues. His “no” vote on extending the child tax credit killed the bill, affecting thousands of West Virginians in a state with increasing child poverty rates following the pandemic.

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, who serves as chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party, called Manchin a “larger than life figure in the United States Senate” and thanked him for his service.

Manchin’s departure from the 2024 Senate race leaves Zachary Shrewsbury, a veteran and community organizer from Southern West Virginia, as the only Democrat running for the office.

Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., and Gov. Jim Justice are currently vying to win the Republican primary for the seat, with $2.3 million and $1.5 million raised respectively for their campaigns so far, according to the Federal Elections Commission. Manchin is leaving the race with nearly $11.3 million raised for his campaign.

“In the coming months, we will engage in a robust process to identify and support a candidate [for U.S. Senate] who truly represents the values of West Virginia,” Pushkin wrote.

Criticizing Justice, Pushkin continued: “The West Virginia Democratic Party will work tirelessly to support and elect a senator who shows up for work, pays his debts and brings more to the U.S. Senate than a cute dog.”

Justice announced his Senate race in April 2023, and has since been vocally critical of Manchin’s work in Washington, D.C.

“Senator Joe Manchin and I have not always agreed on policy and politics, but we’re both lifelong West Virginians who love this state beyond belief, and I respect and thank him for his many years of public service,” Justice said in a news release.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who has served side by side with Manchin on numerous committees since her election to the Senate in 2014, took to social media to thank Manchin for his service to their “beloved West Virginia.”

“I’ve enjoyed serving alongside you — our senior senator. And, as you said, we still have much work ahead of us,” Capito said. “Thank you for your friendship, Joe. I look forward to that continuing.”

Manchin said his decision to leave the Senate came after “months of deliberation and long conversations” with his family.

“To the West Virginians who have put their trust in me and fought side by side to make our state better — it has been an honor of my life to serve you. Thank you,” Manchin said.

This story is republished from West Virginia Watch, a sister publication of Kentucky Lantern and part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.?

Miners have suffered more exposure to silica dust as more rock must be removed to reach dwindling coal seams. (Getty Images)

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration is hosting a public comment hearing in Beckley on Thursday on a proposed rule that could strengthen silica exposure standards — one of the leading causes of black lung — for coal miners.

The proposed rule would, for the first time, implement a separate exposure limit for silica dust specifically, cut the maximum exposure limit for silica dust to 50 micrograms per cubic meter for a full-shift exposure and create an “action level” for when exposure comes at 25 micrograms per cubic meter for a full shift.

Advocates for those living with pneumoconiosis, commonly referred to as black lung, and the families of workers who have died from it, however, hold concerns about the implementation and enforcement of these standards in the proposed rule.

Sam Petsonk, a West Virginia-based attorney who has represented “many hundreds” of coal miners in claims seeking black lung benefits, said the current state of enforcement mechanisms and testing standards, among other policies in the proposed rule, has turned it into “utter swiss cheese.”

“The administration and leadership [at MSHA] has all the right priorities and there is something deeply commendable in proposing this rule, but the bureaucracy in MSHA has written a rule, a proposed rule, that undermines that,” Petsonk said. “I believe the agency means what it says, that the leadership does intend to do what they’ve committed in establishing a silica exposure limit that will actually be protected and enforceable.”

That’s the point of the public comment, Petsonk continued, so people will have the opportunity to lay out potential problems with the proposed rule and have MSHA respond to those concerns.

For Petsonk and other advocates, weaknesses of the proposed rule boil down to three main concerns: No regular sampling for silica levels, no penalties for mining operations found not in compliance with the rule and no mandatory or enforceable protections for coal miners working in mines with elevated exposure levels.

If mines were found to be in violation of the proposed rule, there is currently no monetary penalty or other action to incentivize operators to correct the situation or to protect workers from being forced to continue working in dangerous conditions. Basically, Petsonk said, operators would be warned about the violation.

“It’s like saying if we catch you speeding we’ll ask you not to speed anymore and send you on your way and see how it works,” Petsonk said, “MSHA has the authority to issue citations and withdraw orders mandating that miners be removed from a violated area of the mine. I’d like to see that in the final rule — I’d like to see proposed monetary penalties and the withdrawal of miners when the dust is too high, too dangerous.”

In its current state, due to the proposed sampling requirements, Petsonk said it’d be incredibly difficult to find violations when they occur even if there was an enforcement mechanism.

The rule would not impose routine sampling for silica dust outside of what is currently performed by MSHA. Instead, it requires one-time sampling for all operational coal mines within 180 days of the rule going into effect. After that six month period, there are no guidelines for new mining operations that start and operators at active mines would have to opt in to periodic sampling for silica.

“MSHA has a limited presence in mines, and while they already sample for silica, clearly the quarterly sampling has not been efficient,” Petsonk said. “If MSHA’s sampling system was adequate to capture silica exposure, it would have done so already and we wouldn’t see the cases we see because they’ve been sampling for that over the last several decades.”

Self-reporting by coal mining operators is a longstanding issue and criticism within the mining industry, where safety violations can be easy to hide due to lack of oversight and enforcement and where the consequences can too often mean death or serious injury for workers.

Quenton King, a federal legislative specialist with nonprofit advocacy group Appalachian Voices, said this is why it’s important to have coal miners with first-hand experience appear at Thursday’s public comment and share what they’ve witnessed.

“You can talk all day about how important it is to have real oversight, how little coal mining companies can be trusted to test their air and whatnot. We hear countless stories of foremen hiding the testing results or rigging testing to suit them,” King said. “We’re really relying on the people who are inside, who got black lung, to say, ‘you can make this rule but without the power to enforce it, we can’t trust operators to follow it.’”

According to an advisory from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in 2018, it’s estimated that 20% of coal miners in Central Appalachia are suffering from black lung — the highest rate detected in more than 25 years. One in 20 of the region’s coal miners are living with the most severe form of the condition.

In recent years, there has been an uptick in the number of miners diagnosed with black lung, and they’re developing it at younger ages than ever before. This is due to the coal seams mined today, unlike in the past when it was abundant and openly accessible, being shielded by layers of silica-bearing sandstone.

“We’re seeing people in their 30s and 40s with X-rays we used to see in their 60s and 70s. People are becoming fully disabled earlier and earlier in their careers,” King said. “Black lung — it’s deadly. It’s incurable. At its worst stages it drastically harms and inhibits your way of life.”

The public comment meeting on Thursday in Beckley, held in room B102 of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy at 9 a.m., is the second of three to be held by MSHA. The first was held in Arlington last Thursday and the next will be in Denver on August 21.

Initially, there was no meeting scheduled for the proposed rule in Central Appalachia despite the high rates and impact of silica dust here. Days after the rule was published and the public comment period set, however, MSHA added the Beckley meeting in response to advocates’ outcries.

Those who wish to attend the meeting can do so and submit testimony either virtually or in person. It is encouraged, but not required, to register for the meeting here: https://www.msha.gov/form/silica-hearings-registration.

West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: [email protected]. Follow West Virginia Watch on Facebook and Twitter.