This morning, we were lucky enough to go on a flyover of mountaintop removal (MTR) sites. The good folks at Southwings Aviation offer these trips as a way to help publicize to the outside world what’s really happening in Appalachia, and our pilot/tour guide Tom was a fountain of knowledge about the issue. Branden got the front seat, because the front window opens and he’s the guy with the good camera. Me and Sue sat in back and took lesser pictures with our lesser cameras through the window.
The first thing that you notice: It is truly beautiful here. Appalachia is green and lush and mountainous and it seems like it goes on forever. And then… it doesn’t. What we couldn’t see from the roadway was apparent from the air. Mountaintop removal coal mining is tearing a hole in the heart of this beautiful forest. In fact, it’s tearing lots of holes. Everywhere we looked, we saw another ugly sore on the landscape – coal mining operations or areas that have been blasted out that aren’t even being mined yet.
MTR sites in Appalachia
While we were flying, one phrase kept going through my mind. “Tikkun Olam” – it’s Hebrew for “to heal (or repair) the world” and it means that we all have an obligation to help restore the world and its inhabitants to a state of wholeness. It’s a concept that often gives meaning to my activism, but nowhere have I felt it more profoundly than here in Appalachia. We were given a region so beautiful that (we learned today) its name comes from a Native American word for “endless mountain forest.” And what do we do? We blast the tops right off of those mountains, trash the trees, and poison the rivers! We’ve got a lot of healing work to do here.
In the afternoon, we had a wonderful visit with Judy Bonds from Coal River Mountain Watch . She told us how she was the eighth generation of her family to live in Appalachia and about how Appalachians have always been connected to the landscape and cared for the commons – until the coal companies came in and laid claim to all of the commons. She had so many important things to say and stories to tell, and if Branden doesn’t write about it, I’ll tell you some of it tomorrow. Now it’s after midnight and we’re meeting with Goldman Prize-winner Maria Gunnoe in the morning, so I’d better call it a day.
Oh, by the way, we stopped by Climate Ground Zero and heard that the tree-sitters’ bail was reduced from $25,000 each to $1000, and the two of them were on their way over to the Climate Ground Zero house this evening after spending a night enjoying the relative peace and quiet of their jail cell.
Twitter Updates
Can I just ask, what the heck do you mean … “the commons?” Last time I checked these mountains belonged to the landowners. You know, the people who have pieces of paper saying they OWN the property. I realize that may be a foreign idea to you.
I am from West Virginia. I was born and raised in the coalfields. My grandfather died of black lung from a lifetime underground. My dad worked his whole career in mining construction. I make my living from coal as well.
My family has lived in this region since the American Revolution. We fought for and in many cases died for this land. It is our land to do with as we see fit. It is NOT — I repeat NOT — some land held in the public common.
You have no idea what is going on here in West Virginia and you don’t really give a damn about the people here. You and folks like you fly in, fly over and take a few pictures, and then you fly away to tell everyone about the dumb and ignorant hillbillies of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky.
Here’s a bit of news for you, we have polls — scientific polls with a stratified random sample and a margin of error of less than 5 percent (CI of 95 percent) — that show fully 70 percent of West Virginians support the mining industry. About the same number say they DON’T want to outlaw mountaintop mining. So answer me this please, who died and made you boss?
Take a hike … preferably somewhere in Afghanistan. I hear Khandahar Province is nice this time of year.
Publius WV, sir (or madam?), if you still cling to the foolish belief that landowners can do anything they damned well please in these days when cumulative impacts of human activity on the landscape cause so much suffering for all manner of beast and man, then I truly pray for your soul. Those of us who are blessed – by lopsided privilege, I might add — to own land only hold it in trust for our Creator, and are obligated to care for it and all other creatures on it. If any human truly “owns” any piece of America it is the citizens of the First Nations from whom it was stolen.
And yes, I am a “landowner” (in the Tennessee coalfields). Some of my ancestors came from West Virginia. At least one of my relatives died in a coal mine accident. One of my ancestors was an aid to General Washington in the American Revolution, and ancestors on both sides of my family came to this land on the Mayflower. I know the true history of America that is rarely taught in American schools, and now that I know it, I have lost all desire as a “landowner” to behave like a fool who would intentionally disembowel and decapitate America’s mountains and do things that would poison my neighbors’ air and water.
This is the problem in all civilization. Too many people think they OWN something because they experienced it first, think its ok to violenty protect it and have no real sense of abstinence.