Dear Arch (and his minions)

First let me just say this: This is my blog and while you are free to comment I am also just as free to delete the revisionist history Ole Uncle Archie and his minions, the anons who post, are spewing.

But since I've been told to "check my facts", allow me to educate you who evidently do not read or can not comprehend.

Moore NEGOTIATED the 1 million dollar settlement. Yes, a judge approved it but it was MOORE'S hand that created it. Now maybe YOU think that was just compensation for a mining company that had regularly thumbed their nose at regulations and were responsible for more than 150 deaths but I do not. Perhaps it's time YOU educate yourself and stop drinking the drool that runs from ole Uncle Archie's mouth.

Moore even allowed Pittston to avoid the clean up costs. He was in coal's right hip pocket and altho we all knew it previously, this made the picture extremely clear. The crook used Buffalo Creek to campaign on, making promises he knew he wouldn't keep.


http://www.wvculture.org/history/arcmoore.html
Although the state sued the coal company for $100 million, Governor Moore negotiated a $1 million settlement, while the state eventually paid the federal government $9.5 million in clean-up costs and interest.


http://www.wvculture.org/HISTORY/buffcreek/buff3.html
May 1972, Governor Arch Moore, in the midst of a re-election campaign, proposed 10 redevelopment projects for Buffalo Creek, few of which were completed on time or ever materialized.


http://wvgazette.com/static/series/buffalocreek/commission.html
Since the Governor's comments indicated a reluctance to place any blame upon the Buffalo Mining Company or upon its owner, the Pittston Company, many West Virginians suspected another whitewash was in the making. Any hope for objectivity and public disclosure of the truth vanished as membership of his commission was revealed:

the heads of three state agencies with jurisdiction in the area of mining impoundments (all of whom would be concerned to prove their respective departments blameless).
a newspaper editor and a university official (both of whom are avid supporters of the coal industry).
representatives of the U.S. Bureau of Mines and the U.S. Geological Survey (federal agencies which had not taken action on the basis of a study conducted five years ago indicating the weak and hazardous nature of Saunders Dam on Buffalo Creek, among others).
and as a "citizen" representative, a retired executive of FMC (a corporation that is heavily dependent on coal).

Alarmed by the obvious bias among the Governor's appointees, approximately 40 people called on the Governor requesting expansion of his commission to include representatives of people such as Buffalo Creek survivors, environmentalists, coal miners, public interest advocates and the like.

Governor Moore refused to comply.


http://wvgazette.com/static/series/buffalocreek/commission.html
Governor Moore and former Governor Hulett Smith were warned in 1967, when the Department of the Interior sent each a copy of its study completed after a coal refuse disaster in Wales. No effective action was taken by either administration

http://www.wvgazette.com/static/series/buffalocreek/BUFF301.html
Personally, I've always figured that something dishonest lurked behind this odd action. Why else would Moore have done it? A federal judge ruled, in effect, that the ex-governor lied under oath about the affair. But no clear explanation ever emerged.

The mystery came to public light when Miles Dean, finance commissioner in the Rockefeller administration, asked me to come to the Statehouse and look at some baffling records. From them, this story emerged:

The unlicensed dam had been built by former Logan County Democratic faction leader A.D. "Buster" Skaggs, who backed Republican Moore in elections. When Skaggs sold his Buffalo Mining Co. to Pittston, the dam became Pittston's responsibility.

After the 1972 tragedy, Gov. Moore's emergency director asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to perform recovery work at state expense. The corps repeatedly billed the state $3.7 million, but Moore kept the invoices confidential and didn't pay them.

The Legislature ordered then-Attorney General Chauncey Browning to sue Pittston for damage to the state's roads, bridges and other facilities. For the task, Browning retained Charleston lawyer Stanley Preiser, who later became Moore's personal defense attorney. Preiser sued Pittston for $100 million.

Five years later - just three days before his term ended in 1977 - Moore signed a settlement, accepting $1 million from Pittston and absolving the firm of further liability. Only a week earlier, the Corps of Engineers had sent him a registered letter saying it would sue the state for the $3.7 million.

After the Rockefeller administration took office, aides were jolted to discover the Corps of Engineers' bills. Browning and Preiser said they hadn't known of the debt while they were suing Pittston. Flabbergasted legislators held hearings, but couldn't get a straight answer from Moore as to why he hadn't required Pittston to pay the corps costs.

A corps lawsuit against the state dragged on for years - with interest on the debt growing at more than $2,000 a day. Moore testified in a deposition that he got a corps letter about the debt - then testified at a trial that he didn't get it. Federal Judge Norman Ramsey pointed out that one of his sworn statements was false.

By 1987, the state had lost in U.S. District Court, U.S. Circuit Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. West Virginia was ordered to pay the $3.7 million plus about $10 million interest.

Attorney General Charlie Brown negotiated with the corps, which agreed to accept a total of $9.5 million (which included payment for another small flood cleanup). In 1989, taxpayers coughed up this reduced amount.



So before you decide to rewrite history you might want to get rid of the evidence. I am ashamed that any West Virginian attempts to hold Moore blameless for the shame that occured after Buffalo Creek.