I know this is a little off-point, but I was thinking about an article I read this morning in the Evansville Courier & Press entitled, "House falling apart." The problem is that a house in southwestern Indiana is sinking into the ground due to the presence of an underground coal mine from the early 1900s. The house is uninhabitable currently, due to the ground caving in as a result of the old mine. This is a fairly new subdivision and a golf course community. The lady who purchased the house was from Toledo, Ohio and didn't know about the prevalence of old mines in the area. She is now having trouble recovering money due to the damage, as she did not know that she needed to buy mine subsidence insurance to cover this type of occurrence. From what I have read in prior articles, the presence of this mine was not noted on old plats--or at least, that is probably what the developers of the community will likely argue.

As I read this article, I thought of the article I had also read in an area business magazine touting the wonderful windfall the area will have if it accesses all of the coal in the Illinois Basin, the coal reserves underneath much of Illinois and Indiana. Coal taken many decades ago from the Illinois Basin is apparently what led to this house disaster. When companies and many individuals get excited about the financial gains to be made in accessing fossil fuels, do they consider how this will impact members of the public in their daily lives? Consider how residents in parts of West Virginia have endured contaminated water and seen their landscape destroyed due to coal mining. Or consider how individuals like this woman can't even live in their homes due to the effects of coal mining. Although situations like hers are probably relatively rare in this country nowadays, I wonder how the public's health and safety may be being compromised in developing countries like India and China, where the need for enormous amounts of cheap power are growing by the day. The pollution alone from fossil fuel burning is a concern, yet there are secondary concerns as well, such as the impact that mining or drilling can have on the public. I suppose it's different in those areas of Texas where residents are currently allowing oil drilling to be conducted on their properties when they own the land and can obtain the financial benefits of the same. Yet, when unsuspecting people live on an old mine or near areas where fossil fuels are being obtained without reaping any financial rewards, it seems unfair for them to suffer in this manner. I suppose it gives all of us one more thing to research before buying a home--i.e. Is it near or on an area where fossil fuels are or were being secured?