From a conclusion of an article in Harpers long ago, I remember this line, approximately: “It will be a wilderness or a garden. If it is not a garden, it will be nothing at all.” Obviously the Appalachians have gone beyond being a wilderness. So we have to choose to make this area a garden. And that means EVERYONE acting in all possible ways for energy conservation and green energy production. Coal condemns our children and grandchildren, in all likelihood, to a horrible future.

Yes, Joe. I do think about the hardworking man. I think about how when all the mountains are gone, then so will all the jobs and then what will you do? I think about how your son won’t be able to find work in the same area you currently work because all that will be left is barren rock he can’t do anything with. I personally have nothing against mining when it’s done responsibly. I want you to be able to feed your family and buy toys for your son. Providing you work and our nation energy can be done in a way that doesn’t completely decimate the mountains. Do you ever think about your grandchildren and how mountains that have existed for thousands of years won’t be around for them to play, work, or live in because of surface mining?

Tim educated me somewhat as to what the coal companies are doing, and have been doing to communities and the environment in West Virginia. Because I deeply care for Tim, I deeply care for all that is important to him and all that he cherishes. I drove all the way down there from where I live in Erie, PA to meet with Tim and to see Blair Mountain.

There are no words to adequately convey my anger at the cannibalistic capitalist coal companies who have blood money on their hands. No amount of cheap electricity or fuel is worth what they are willing to destroy! None! We have the technology to harness solar, wind, and geothermal energy.

What good is cheap coal-fired power when you cannot ever replace the natural resource of the mountains, the ecosystem, and the ability of the people living there to remain living there? There are some things you just cannot put a pricetag on.

There is no excuse for our government failing to invest in alternative fuel and putan immediate stop to strip mining and mountaintop removal. Some day, I want to be able to sell my home and make my home in Appalachia – with the man I have come to love, and the beautiful mountains which are his home and his heritage.

Coal companies not only have the indelible stain of debt peonage and the violent oppression of workers on their hands in every place coal was discovered. The coal companies also have left in their wake irreparable ecological disasters.

As a Pennsylvania native, I can tell you what coal company greed and government ineptitude did to the Columbia County community known as Centralia. The largest anthracite coal vein in the US – the Buck Mountain coal vein – is going up in smoke, literally. It has been for the past 46 years. Centralia was ruined and before all is said and done, 3,700 acres of anthracite coal will be up in smoke.

Please know that there are those of us “outsiders” to Appalachia who DO care what is happening to your land, your ecosystem, and your communities down there…and we are outraged. I for one, stand with you!

Every little bit we do to help the cause will, in the end will help our country. You are modern day crusader and protector of this great area. I am in North Carolina, probably less than 75 miles from you as the crow flies…….How long before they run out of devastating WV and head south?????? Not if I have anything to say about it!!!!! It never should have been allowed…..get the word out! People will be outraged when they find out what is happening.!
You go girl!

I think this is a strange coincidence. I am doing a college assignment on cultural diversity. I stumbled accross your article while researching. It just so happens that my mother and father’s family were from Kayford, and later Cabin Creek.

Are you familiar with the Short family? With the Kidd family? I’ll ask my family if they have a rememberance of your family.

Great story. You have much passion for the place you love.

My brother and I took a drive up Cabin Creek Road to see where family used to live in Eskdale. To our surprise, the entire town is GONE. Even the train yards are no more. The mine pulled out, and closed up this once-thriving community.

Yet the coal trains keep rolling every day, back and forth with their loads of black gold. But the railroads won’t invest in West Virgina, either, leaving the tracks rusting and ready to crumble. Doing just enough to help bleed it dry.

This beautiful country is filled with beautiful people. Proud. Honest. Hard-working. Everything we hold dear.

I’m proud to have been born there to great parents who were forced to leave in the 50’s to support our family. Even then, the only jobs were in the mines or for the railroad. Both honorable professions that had claimed the lives of many in our family. And things have grown progressively worse as the young have been forced to flee to find work.

It’s time we quit flying over this oasis in our heartland, and begin standing up for its people and the environment that mining threatens to ruin forever.

The only answer is to find ways to draw entrepreneurial and corporate efforts back to the hills, along with industries that can be sustained and grow even in the remote regions off the beaten track. To stop the brain drain, and put it to work to make this again into a vibrant contributor to the national economy in more ways than just mining coal.

Though I do not live there now (family still does), I am a lawyer, author, and national speaker and offer my support to the movement if they should care to call.

In the meantime, I encourage all of you to drive through the mountains and see what they’re doing. It’s worse than the strip minining that took so long to stop many years ago.

God bless the mountains. And the people who call them their home.