Six years ago, Armando Pérez Araújo and Remedios Fajardo visited Salem from northern Colombia, where Armando was a lawyer representing the displaced Afro-Colombian village of Tabaco, and Remedios an activist in the indigenous Wayuu organization Yanama.
They told us how their region had been devastated by the giant Cerrej—n coal mine, then owned by Exxon. Entire villages had been displaced and swallowed up by the mine while other communities had lost the centuries-old livelihoods based on hunting, fishing, and farming due to land loss and contamination of the air and water. Cerrej—n was then, and still is, the largest open-pit coal mine in the world — currently about 35-by-5 miles, and growing every day.
Salem's power plant, like many others, shifted to Colombian coal because it was cheaper and cleaner than coal mined in the U.S. The coal may be cheaper and cleaner when it is burned here, but it is dirtier and more expensive where it is mined. We must also count the cost in murdered workers and the devastated environment in the coal-mining regions.
Since 2002, Dominion has continued to use Cerrej—n coal at its Somerset plant, but switched to coal from the Drummond mine, also in northern Colombia, for the Salem facility. Two weeks ago, I visited both of these mines with a delegation of 20 activists from around the world.
At Drummond, we met with the Injured Workers' Association. Yes, there are enough injured workers to form their own organization.
Drummond uses a unique "apron feeder" system to move the coal out of the mine, and hundreds of workers have suffered spinal cord injuries from driving the trucks into which giant boulders are repeatedly dropped.
"All they care about is speed," one worker told us. "They know they are destroying our health with this system, but all they care about is getting more coal, more quickly."
"Why don't you protest?" one of the delegates in our group asked.
In reply, one of the injured workers pointed to photos on the wall of three union leaders who were murdered by right-wing paramilitaries. "That's why," he said quietly.
Our delegation also visited the village of Mechoacán, a few kilometers away from the mine. The villagers had received the land through Colombia's land reform process in 1991, but when Drummond started mining, the land reform was abandoned. The road, the school, and the infrastructure that people had been promised never materialized. Instead, blasting from the mine damages the structures that they have built, and the air and water are poisoned. There is no work and no school.
Near the Cerrej—n mine, we visited the similarly abandoned indigenous village of Tamaquito.
"We used to be productive people," the head of the village explained, "but now Cerrej—n has taken over all of the land we used to farm. Our children used to go to school in Tabaco, but now Tabaco is gone."
Four members of our delegation from an organization called Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, live in Appalachian areas devastated by coal mining. They shared pictures, stories and their grief at the destruction of their communities.
The city of Salem is part of an ongoing international campaign to pressure these mines to improve their human rights practices. The mayor and city councilors met with representatives of Colombian unions and the communities when they visited Salem. Largely as a result of this international pressure, the Cerrej—n mine has now agreed to negotiate over relocation of villages and compensation for those affected by the mining.
I was proud to represent Salem on this trip. We call upon Dominion to support the rights of those affected by the mining of the coal it buys. All of us who use electricity must think about our moral debt to the victims of our energy policies.
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Aviva Chomsky is professor of history and coordinator of the Latin American Studies program at Salem State College.
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