/images/AppalachianVoice/Jan_2008/electric_earth_circ.gif Teri Blanton typed her five digit zip code into the web site. Then it hit her. “I was shocked,” she said. The page showed that her own electricity was coming from the very mountaintop removal site that she had…
Blog Archives
Illustrating Unimaginable Hardship
Illustrating Unimaginable Hardship by Matt Wasson According to Dr. Matt Wasson, the conservation director of Appalachian Voices, “New media is du rigueur for building a national movement and a national movement is absolutely what’s required to stop mountaintop removal coal…
Citizens ask courts to investigate fly ash project for New River
PEARISBURG, VA – An unusual lawsuit by a citizens group asks for a grand jury investigation into a controversial coal waste project on the banks of the New River. The Concerned Citizens of Giles County filed the lawsuit on January…
Protests Raise Awareness of Destruction
The recent protest of Charlotte-based Bank of America’s practice of financing companies who strip mine coal in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia raised concerns that should be of interest to all North Carolinians. The Rainforest Action Network hung a huge…
Environmental Education in Giles County
It’s often been said that a good example is at the heart of a good education. That being true, imagine what students on the New River in southwestern Virginia are learning about morality, science, economics and law, thanks to American…
John McCain to Appalachian Voices: “Stop the Removal of Mountains”
/images/AppalachianVoice/Jan_2008/obama_circ.gif Southern Appalachia has never been closer to New Hampshire than it was at this year’s New Hampshire primaries. As thousands of New Hampshire voters gathered in the chilly, slushy streets of Manchester and Concord to support their favorite candidates,…
Review: A Hard Journey: The Life of Don West
James J. Lorence, A Hard Journey: The Life of Don West (University of Illinois Press) Review by Kirk R. MacGregor appvoices.org/books In this comprehensive and insightful biography of radical Appalachian poet, preacher, and social activist Don West (1906-92), James J.…
When the Buffalo Roamed
A curious characteristic of Appalachian geography is the number of features- creeks, knobs, hollows, etc. – with “buffalo” in their name. This beast from the western plains seems as out-of-place in the forests of Appalachia as a saguaro cactus on…
Tilly Wood: Beloved Hostess and Guardian of the Appalachian Trail
In summer, we would always travel the winding country roads past Pearisburg, Va., watching for the dog that chases us those last few feet of pavement, nudging past the cows on the washed out Forest Service road, navigating the ruts,…
West Virginia’s Vulnerable Isolated Wetlands
/images/AppalachianVoice/AVNov07/Michele-Sabatier_circ.gif West Virginia, for those that have never been there, is deserving of its famous description. Indeed, the Mountain State is wild and wonderful, with varied terrain, unique habitats and pristine streams. A particularly remarkable area is the high elevation…
