Oral History Interview with McKinley Morgan

[Begin Interview]

Female: Called you the Three–

Interviewer: Three Stooges. And I haven’t figured out which I am. You know, that’s what concerns me more than anything else. I hope–

Interviewer: We’re talking to Mr. Morgan in Hyden, Kentucky. And today is May the thirteenth. [pause] and go ahead with, what, what you were starting to say a moment ago.

Morgan: Of course, the coal industry in Leslie County, it being a single industry county, has affected Leslie County tremendously, especially over the last, probably fourteen, fifteen years. The time frame of my familiarity with it goes back to before I went to the University of Kentucky and started in undergraduate school. And then went on into law school. It was a seven-year period before I left here, basically the mining was underground mining, where they would have some eight or ten people employed. They were loading the coal out by hand. The industrialization or mechanization had not really commenced at that time. The average– [loud noise]

Interviewer: Okay.

Morgan: Up until around 1962, ’63, the average daily wage of a person working in the underground industry would have been, he would have received an average wage of somewhere around eight to ten dollars per shift, which is a day’s work. When I came back to Leslie County five years ago, 1972, the average age for a day’s work had advanced to somewhere around thirty-five to forty dollars. Today in the unionized mines, and in the non-union mines, the wages are comparable. I would estimate the average wage now is somewhere around sixty-five to seventy-five dollars per day. And that’s an eight-hour day, not a ten-hour [day]. Course, most of the mining now in Leslie County is done by strip mining rather than the underground industry. The wages for a person on the strip mine is comparable to that of a deep miner. The switch from underground mining to strip mining probably commenced around the 1967-’68 timeframe when the need for coal increased to such a point that underground mining would not satisfy the market need. And of course, the coal industry here has affected the social life, the, of the county. It has allowed us to have more modern homes. Before I started in law school and, or started to college in 1965, most of the homes in Leslie County did not have indoor plumbing, for example, with indoor bathrooms. Today, that’s an exception. That’s a real exception if a person doesn’t have the modern conveniences that life provides. Most of the heating do-, was done by the traditional pot-bellied stove up until that time. Now we have the modern heat pump systems that air conditions and heats the home. We’ve seen a tremendous advancement in the standard of living. Our unemployment rate from the 1965 War on Poverty initiated by President Johnson, when the unemployment rate was some 35 percent, has dropped now to 1977. In Leslie County we have 6.1 percentage of the total work force unemployed. And of course we’re under the nat-, nation’s average now. And that unemployment figure relates individually to the coal industry. We have some four to five thousand, thousand persons employed in the industry now. And their annual income is somewhere around twenty-two to twenty-five thousand dollars a year. And I think that’s fairly higher than your national mean of an average income. Of course, we still have our traditional problems in Leslie County with the unskilled labor force. If a person doesn’t possess the ability to operate the bulldozers, the end loaders, and all the other mining equipment, he’s got a bad outlook on finding any sort of employment.

Unidentified: Okay.

Morgan: But all in all, the mining industry has done a lot to develop Leslie County. We now have people who are working. Our crime rate is lower, I feel, because of the employment situation. We have a two-million-dollar recreation facility that’s being constructed now. Primarily from funds from the severance tax on coal. We have a modern water and sewage treatment plant that has been constructed in the last few years. It’s been directly related to the need for a better wholesome life. And of course, the advancement of Eastern Kentucky in the past fifteen years has exceeded any area, I feel, in the nation.

Interviewer: Okay. Why don’t we continue here.

Morgan: Okay. What you want to go into next?

Interviewer: Well, why don’t we try the strip-mining description. [ ] want to do that next?

Morgan: Okay. The procedure for commencing, carrying out and completing the strip mine under the law of the state of Kentucky as it exists today, to start the strip-mining process you use the geological maps to locate your seam of coal. You send a engineer out to take elevation readings. Then the, a small D4 or D6 bulldozer will go out and what we call prospect the area at the elevation where the engineer says the coal ought to be. And of course there is variance in the seams of coal. They’ll sometimes run fifteen to twenty feet higher or lower in elevation than they will appear someplace else. But generally, they’re locate-, localized to a specific elevation within probably a fifty-foot margin of error.

After you’re sure there’s coal there of marketable quality, and of course you determine the marketable quality by taking a channel sample or a core drill, having the coal analyzed through a laboratory testing procedure. From that, you find out the BTU level of the coal. You find out the sulfur content of the coal, the ash content, and the other factors that goes into the quality considerations from this laboratory testing procedure. If you’ve got a good, marketable item then, you have certified civil engineers that will work up what is called a strip-mine permit. The permit itself is the method of operation that the operator will use to extract the coal. The strip mine permit plan will include the construction of silt basins based upon how much area is going to be, how much area will be affected. It also includes the width of the bench cut itself, the height of the high wall. It includes how much overburden or spoilage will be placed acr-, over the mountain. It determines what sort of equipment will be used on the site itself. Included in the strip mine plan is the method of reclamation, whether–

Interviewer: Hold on a second.

Morgan: Okay. It includes your method of reclamation, whether the area will be left a bench level type area, or whether it will be, the spoilage will be placed back against the high wall and return to some semblance of approximate original contour. It will also determine the type of foliage that’s placed on the spoil bank itself. It will determine how soon the reclamation should be completed. And it will also include with it a cash bond for approximately now five hundred dollars per acre. This bond guarantees that the operator will restore the affected area. And all of this is submitted to, first of all, the local inspector who will go out and look at the site, determine whether it’s feasible or not to carry out the mining operation as set out in the strip-mine plan. If he says that he believes it can be done, then he will okay it and stamp his approval on the per-, on the plan. The United States Corps of Engineers Water Quality Division comes in, and, and they make a determination as to what effect the operation will have on the quality of water. And if it’s not going to be detrimental to the water, they will approve the plan. After you get your--on the site inspections, the strip mine plan is submitted to a district office. The district office for Leslie County is located at Hazard, Kentucky. You have at the district office a office staff of engineers, environmental people that is concerned with water quality, erosion problems, siltation streams. These people will go through the plan, read through your field inspector’s reports. And after that, the plan is approved, assuming that it is approved at the district office. It’s sent on to Frankfort to the state office. And there again, the plan is looked at again by civil engineers and specialists in the field. And they have an opportunity to make a determination whether or not the operation is conducted. After the three levels of review has concluded and the plan has met its final approval, the permit is then re-, is issued from the State Department for Natural Resources and Environmental Protection to the operator that he can commence the construction of the silt basin. And after his silt basins have been completed, he’s allowed to go in and start the preparation of the site for extraction of coal. The first thing he does is cuts all of the trees off of the affected area. They harvest the trees and sell them for commercial timbering.

Morgan: And they’re required to leave, I think, 15 percent of the tree stand that’s pushed to the end of where the spoil bank will be to keep erosion from occurring on the spoil bank. After that, they start the drilling of the bench and cutting away the overburden of sandstone and shale and dirt to get to the coal level. Now a lot of the overburden that comes from the cut is placed in what’s called a hollow fill area. It’s an area at the head of a hollow, or the head the drainage basin, where they store the overburden until after the mining has been completed. Now this storage area may be a permanent thing, or it may be temporary, depending upon the plan of operation. Course, after they reach the coal level, the coal is taken out, usually by end loaders and placed in coal trucks. In Leslie County, we have to transport it some sixty miles to a railroad siding or a tipple where it’s loaded on trains for shipment to the consumer, usually power plants or metallurgical industries. After the extraction process, and even during the extraction process, reclamation work is going on. The spoil bank is graded. To prevent erosion, they try to put it on such a slope that it’s not steep, so it will hold. They further, most companies now are using what’s called a hydro seeder. It is a machine that mixes the fertilize, the grass and the straw all up and does the entire operation by machine. It’s a much more effective than the hand sowing process that used to go on in the coal fields. After this occurs, the property is allowed to sit for two years. And if there is 60 percent vegetation cover, then the reclamation is considered a success, and the operator’s bond is released, and he gets his money back from the bond. If you do not achieve 60 percent coverage of vegetation, the operator is required under the law to go back and to redo those areas that are, that have sparse vegetation on it, so as to receive a better cover. After that’s done, he’s got to wait two more years on those areas. And if we get vegetation cover at 60 percent then, it’s released. Now the vegetation that’s usually placed on the spoil burden is fescue, clover, and other grasses that has a high root, large root systems with them to stop down, to cut down erosion. Now on the outer edges of the spoil bank, usually there’s some sort of tree seed placed in the mixture. Most common is the locust. Also, you have considerable amounts of pine and poplar going in and being seeded into the outer slope of the strip mine bench. Of course you have disturbed the environment to a big degree. Nobody questions that, even in the industry. But considering the use after the disturbance has occurred, it has been the experience in Leslie County that most of the property owners want it, the area left relatively flat and usable for grazing, or for some other purpose. And they do not really want the high wall put back to its approximate original contour.

Interviewer: Okay. Specifically, why don’t you if you would [ ]...

Morgan: Of course, one of the problems that you have in disturbing the environment is when you disturb it, you have considerable siltation runoff through the erosion process. To minimize that, the engineers have devised a silt basin or collecting basin plan to cut down siltation of streams and runoff. Now these silt ponds or silt basins are constructed before any activity is started on the affected premises. Those are the first things that the operator does when he gets ready to commence the plan that he has had approved. Now there’s usually a series of ponds depending on how big an area the operator is going to disturb. Your normal permit acreage in Leslie County for each operation is somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen to thirty acres. And for a, for an operation that would have approximately fifteen acres of affected premises, the average plan would call for the construction of two– [loud motor noise in background]

Interviewer: Why don’t you take that again [ ] take that again.

Morgan: For an area of approximately fifteen acres that would be affected by the mining operation, the operating plan would usually call for at least two, and more likely three, silt basins. These basins are so constructed that the sedimentation would settle to the bottom before any water goes out at the far end of the silt pond from the mining site. These ponds are set up so there will be sufficient storage areas that the sedimentation will not fill up the pond and allow the water to run over the spillway. And it’s been our experience in Leslie County, even during times of heavy rainfall, that the runoff from the strip mine site never goes directly into the stream. It always passes through the settling basins, and they rarely, or to my knowledge never, have gone over the spillways, even during these periods of high rainfall. The affected areas, they, where a strip mine has, strip mine operation has been conducted upon, of course it’s not released and placed into any other use until all the vegetation requirements have been met. After that, the property owner is–

[End Side A. Begin Side B.]

Morgan: The property owner is at liberty to use the property at that time as he sees fit. Some of the uses that the strip mine land has been placed after it’s finally been released is it’s been placed into– Some of the uses that the strip mine land has been readily available to, of course, is housing. We have one area that is called the Tower Mountain area in Leslie County. There was some sixty to eighty acres of land that has been disturbed in that area. Most of the mining was of the mountain top removal type where the entire mountain was uncapped and displaced and rearranged. On this one particular site there’s two homes up there. There’s five farm ponds on it. Each one of the ponds, they’re supporting fish and all forms of aquatic life. There is a farm in its early stages going on up there. There’s corn crop being raised on it, was last year. Complete garden. Of course, now you do not have a lot of development until after these permits are released. And sometimes they’re tied up some six and eight years. So really the potential use of a strip mine site has not been tested in Leslie County because the industry [is] in its infancy. We’ve not had any released areas to, to exploit yet. And, but it’s also available for grazing. It’s one of the best places for grazing in Leslie County we have. It’s very difficult to establish pastureland on our mountainous terrain. And the bench provides an area where pastureland can, where the grass can take roots and grow. Now another use that the strip mine land has been placed is the timbering. There, a lot of companies go in, and they seed the affected premises with all sorts of trees. And they are growing on the affected premises now. Of course they will not be a timber harvest for some years. But at least they’re being placed other use other than just sitting there and letting them be, letting nature erode the area.

Interviewer: Could I get another statement regarding the housing thing? Because that, that applied.

Morgan: Of course, one of the major benefits that the strip mining has as far as, I feel, is that it provides an area of level land for housing. [pause in recording] Of course one of the primary uses, I feel, in years to come, of the strip mine bench itself will be a place where persons can have level land upon on which to construct houses. In Leslie County, you have a mountainous terrain. And the suitable places [place] for placing a house is very limited.

[pause in recording]

Interviewer: Okay. Anytime you’re ready.

Morgan: Approximately a year ago, a group of coal operators in Leslie County, hearing of the impending federal legislation regulating the strip mine industry, became concerned that the industry itself was receiving a black eye that it might ought not receive [it] if the true facts were known about the industry itself. So, the operators, and when I speak of operators, I’m speaking of the owners of the company. These were smaller companies. Companies that produce in the neighborhood of twenty to eighty thousand ton of coal per year, that are local citizens that are engaged in mining, we got together and formed a, a two-county coal association that’s called the Leslie Clay Coal Op-, Coal Producers’ Association. And the association is made up of those small operators to medium sized operators. We now have fifteen members. Member companies. The board of directors of the producers’ association, we have one representative from each company. And of course, this association has only been in existence for a short period of time. We have a full-time secretary that works in my office. And I work part time with them at no salary. But the things that we’ve tried to do is to take the friction from the operators. In other words, make them live together and all prosper from their relationship, one with another. And some of the things that we’re hoping to do with this association– One of the goals, or some of the goals of the Leslie Clay Coal Producers’ Association is to form a cooperative tippling facility. The tipple facilities usually take part of the profit margin from the coal producer, somewhere around three to four dollars a ton. And we feel that if we can cooperatively go together and purchase a tipple site, secure our own contracts directly from the consumer, that the profit margin of the coal producer will be raised so that he can do a better job of reclamation and protection of our environment.

Morgan: Without this additional profit margin, your small independent operator is going to be a thing of the past. Because he cannot meet the strict, stringent laws that are being enacted by our state legislator and the Congress of the United States. Of course, one of the other burdens that the coal producer faces is the reclamation burden. We feel that cooperatively the operators could go together, purchase a hydro seeder, and have a trained corps of people in reclamation instead of using the same people to produce the coal, to reclaim the area. We feel that cooperatively we could establish a laboratory to do our laboratory testing on the soils and on erosion control. And better serve the citizens of Leslie County and the state and nation through the utilization of the orphan banks. Of course, the strip mining of coal is governed by plans of civil certified engineers from the commencement of the operation until the com-, completion of the operation. Along with the restoration of the land. Now the strip mine plan is drafted by these engineers. It is impr-, it is approved by a corps of engineers, water quality personnel, from both the state and federal governments. And the operation cannot be commenced until these engineers for the state and federal government has determined that the plan of operation will leave as little impact on the environment as is possible. This plan that’s established and submitted in complete detail from the very initial removal of the first piece of dirt until the final seeding of grass or trees on the affected premises has taken place.

Interviewer: Anytime you’re ready.

Morgan: Okay. The whole, the strip-mining process is regulated by state and federal agencies from the commencement of the operation until its conclusion. And I mean conclusion in the sense that the final reclamation stages have been completed. By that, vegetation has been established, tree cover has been established. And even if a person owned his property and was doing the mining himself, he still has to meet the same criteria as any other coal producer would meet. And in Leslie County, our citizens own some 60 to 70 percent of the land and minerals. However, they’re unable to do anything different than if they were only the surface owner and a large corporation owned the minerals.

[End Interview.]