Kayford Mountain, WV
VIDEO: Aerial Flyover of Kayford Mountain
Thursday, February 2nd, 2006
Courtesy of upcoming documentary: Coal Fired
Courtesy of Bob Gates
Thursday, February 2nd, 2006
Courtesy of upcoming documentary: Coal Fired
Courtesy of Bob Gates
Appalachian Voices • Coal River Mountain Watch • Heartwood • Keeper of the Mountains • Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition • Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment • Sierra Club Environmental Justice
Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards • SouthWings • Stay Project • West Virginia Highlands Conservancy
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June 17th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
I grew up on the Boone County side of Kayford, at Seng Creek. They also destroyed a tunnel there that was just shy of a mile long. I used to ride bikes through it with friends. There was also a stream on my side of the tunnel where I used to catch lizards for fish bait, and on the Kayford side was a bigger stream where someone had placed a pipe stacked on rocks for water collection. Man, how good was that water! On a hot summer day, it was ice cold! How sad that it’s all gone now. I took my children there in 2001 to show them the tunnel, and all we saw was destruction and a seeping stream of sludge that smelled like sewer….how could I explain but for the greed of man for doing it, and the ignorance of man for allowing it to happen. May God forgive us, bcause I can’t.
August 17th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
This is an atroscity! When I heard about this my jaw nearly hit the floor. How could people destroy such magestry? One word…. GREED! They could be working on more useful ways for energy like corn or windmills or even water, since we will have tons of H2O due to global warming & icecaps melting. How much more damage can we think up? But God says “vengence will be mine” and He will “destroy those who are destroying the earth”!
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:08 pm
I remember my parents driving through that tunnel to go to Grandmas house. That was one of my biggest memories of going to Grandmas, i think it was the neatest thing i ever saw as a child. they just don’t have roads like that in Columbus or any big city. I’m trying to make a family tree dvd and I can’t even find a picture of that tunnel. I’ve told my husband about it, and he just gives me a look. Well you can’t tell somebody about something like that and expect them to believe you. I remember the road leading to the tunnel had a little wooden bridge and it got a big crack across it one year and they made a little road down through the creekbed around the bridge. And sometimes coal trucks would pass us in the tunnel and my mom would just pull that old buick over as close to the wall as she could and come to a stop and let them pass. I can’t believe that someone allowed them to erase history like this.
January 20th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I was born at Kayford and lived there till 1980 when Bethleham mines shut down. I also work there right now. The job there provides my family with a good living. If people have a problem with what coal companies are doing they need to realize the companies either own or lease the land. They pay taxes so they have the right to do what they want on what they own. As far as community impact, the streams are cleaner now than when I was growing up there in the 70’s. Flooding, I don’t buy that either. I have photos of the 1916 flood that destroyed Cabin Creek and there were no surface mining then.
I do have a picture of the tunnel I took before it was closed for safety reasons.