“Hard Road of Hope” Characterizes Coal & Gas Extraction in West Virginia

A region scarred by coal production now faces fracking threats

From an Article by Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, September 7, 2021

The Real News Network (TRNN) Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez talks with filmmaker Eleanor Goldfield about her documentary “Hard Road of Hope” and the destruction coal and gas companies have wreaked on West Virginia.

In her documentary “Hard Road of Hope,” independent filmmaker Eleanor Goldfield details the history and contemporary struggles of West Virginians living and dying in coal country. As part of our coverage commemorating the Battle of Blair Mountain centennial, we are screening “Hard Road of Hope” for a limited time on the TRNN YouTube channel (watch it now here).

In this complementary interview, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez talks with Goldfield about the urgency of the issues detailed in her documentary, and about how the gas industry, which employs environmentally destructive practices like fracking, is picking up where the coal industry left off and continuing the exploitation of the people and resources of West Virginia.

To see more of Goldfield’s work, visit https://artkillingapathy.com/

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ABSENTEE OWNERSHIP STRIKES AGAIN IN WEST VIRGINIA

Mylan plant closure misses chance to build public-private health response

Letter by Dana Brown, Huntington Register Herald, August 28, 2021

It’s an all too familiar story. A company with some of the best-paying jobs around and a vital anchor for the community decides to engage in “restructuring” to “maximize long-term value creation.”

In other words, it closes down and lays off its workers in pursuit of bigger profits.

But the late July closure of the Viatris pharmaceutical plant in Morgantown, West Virginia – which employed close to 1,500 people and was the largest remaining generic pharmaceutical plant in the U.S. – is particularly galling.