Activist to Investigate the Calamity of Coal at Washington College

Chestertown – Cultural historian, author and activist Jeff Biggers will explore the fallacy of “clean coal” in a lecture at Washington College on Monday, February 8, at 4:30 p.m. at the Rose O’Neill Literary House located on Washington Avenue.

In his new book, RECKONING AT EAGLE CREEK: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland, Biggers critiques the industry, the Big Coal lobby, and national leaders who stand at a crossroads in the energy and climate debate. “Coal is not – and never will be – clean or cheap,” he says.

Biggers – whose grandfather worked in the coal mines in southern Illinois and suffered from black lung disease – argues that we have stripped away the most troubling issues of the coal industry from our historical memory. “We have forgotten that Native Americans were removed as part of Thomas Jefferson’s national policy to mine coal, that the industry in the land of Lincoln…was launched by legal black slaves, and that strip mining unleashed environmental havoc that has wiped out families and poisoned some of the most diverse forests and waterways in America’s heartland.”

An acclaimed correspondent from the coalfields' frontlines, Jeff Biggers has been interviewed on numerous national and local television and radio programs, has served as a commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition, and is a regular contributor to Huffington Post.

The lecture, sponsored by the Rose O’Neill Literary House and the Center for Environment & Society at Washington College, is free and open to the public.  For information, contact 410-778-7845.