The Front Porch Blog, with Updates from AppalachiaThe Front Porch Blog, with Updates from Appalachia

BLOGGER INDEX

Events in celebration of Center for Appalachian Studies’ 30th anniversary

Sunday, September 13th, 2009 | Posted by Sandra Diaz | No Comments

In celebration of the Center for Appalachian Studies’ 30th anniversary and Appalshop’s 40th anniversary, the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University will be present a number of different events this week. Our favorites are listed below. Ann Pancake is the voice behind our multi-media presentation on mountaintop removal, Appalachian Treasures. And Tom Hansell and Appalshop have been producing great documentaries about Appalachia. Check them all out!

Monday, September 14, 7:00pm
IG Greer Auditorium
Featured Speaker Ann Pancake
“Voices from Under the Mine: A Reading from the Novel: Strange as This Weather Has Been & Book Signing

Published in 2007, “Strange As This Weather Has Been” is her first novel. It features a southern West Virginia family devastated by mountaintop removal mining. Based on interviews and real events, the novel was one of KirkusReview’s Top Ten Fiction Books of 2007, won the 2007 Weatherford Award, and was a finalist for the 2008 Orion Book Award.

Wednesday September 16 7pm
Premier of Tom Hansell’s “The Electricity Fairy”
Belk Library Room 114

“They reach out and flip the switch and the light comes on. Well, there’s not a magic electricity fairy. That electricity comes from a power plant that feeds on coal.”
– Eugene Mooney, former head of the Kentucky Department for Natural Resources

The Electricity Fairy is a documentary that examines America’s national
addiction to fossil fuels through the lens of electricity. Appalshop
Filmmaker Tom Hansell follows the story of a proposed coal-fired power
plant in the mountains of southwest Virginia, connecting the local
controversy to the national debate over energy policy. Present day
documentary footage is remixed with old educational films, connecting
past policy to America’s current energy crisis.


Boulder rolling into KY home only gets $10,000 fine

Sunday, September 13th, 2009 | Posted by Sandra Diaz | No Comments

The fine assessed to coal company for blasting a boulder into your home : $10,000
Bail assessed to tree-sitters who prevent blasting at a mountaintop removal site: $50,000
Ending mountaintop removal coal mining: PRICELESS

One of the dangers that face coalfield residents every day is what the industry calls flyrock, a term that does not provide an accurate description. Flyrock can be more accurately described as “really big boulders that can kill you.”

This picture is a example of a “flyrock” incident that occurred in Floyd County, KY, late last week. Luckily no one was home at the time of the incident. The fact that people could have been killed and that a home was severely damaged, not to mention the psychological damage done to the community, surely is worth more than $10,000. Obviously, the Division of Mine Reclamation and Enforcement in Kentucky disagreed.

This is not the only time flyrock had damaged homes; and it has even taken lives. In January 2005, a bulldozer pushed a boulder the size of a large microwave off a mountaintop removal site in Appalachia, Virginia, at 3 a.m. where it rolled right into the bedroom of Zach and Jeremy Davdison. Jeremy, the younger of the two, was unfortunate enough to have the bed next to the outside wall. That boulder crushed 3 year-old- Jeremy Davidson to death. But Zach, the older brother while physically safe will have psychological wounds that may never heal. The Washington Post article reported him saying, “When we move, I don’t want to live by a hill. I may be next.”

The A&G Coal Company, responsible for the incident, was fined even less, a paltry $5000.

However, peaceful protesters who sat in trees to prevent blasting at Massey Energy’s Edwight Surface Mine were fined $50,000 for trespass, obstruction and littering when they came down after 5 days of enduring psychological torture, verbal assault and threats from Massey employees and security.

In fact, the rough treatment of the 2 tree-sitters, as well as the contracted security themselves, was enough for Chris Carey and Patrick Murray, two of the contract security, to walk off the job. They were brave enough to share their views of the tree-sit, and their complex and subtle opinions of the power of Big Coal and the future of West Virginia. Watch the video- there’s a 10 minute version, but the one hour version is worth listening to as well.

What message are we sending to the coalfield residents of Appalachia, when coal companies literally get away with murder and destruction for a measly $10,000?


New Media Keeping Coal Ash Spill from Drowning in the Muck

Friday, January 9th, 2009 | Posted by Sandra Diaz | No Comments

Repost from Huffington Post:

While the current amount of coverage on the 1 billion gallon coal ash spill in Harriman, TN is definitely lacking compared to how devastating this disaster is, the amount of coverage is more than 4 times what the Martin County, KY spill of 2000 received, based on a quick Google search.

The Kentucky coal slurry spill, which was only one third the size of this recent coal-related event, was at that time considered by the EPA (which is not known for over exaggeration of the severity of events) to be “the largest environmental disaster east of the Mississippi.”

While media complacency and cultural bias against the rural (and not so rural) South existed back in 2000 and still exists today, there are new tools to help us bypass them. Blogs. Facebook. Twitter. YouTube. Flickr. I could go on, but you “get the picture” (and if you don’t, you can search for it, and SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE has posted it on the internet).

Volunteer organizations and individuals were largely responsible for creating the buzz that has injected this disaster into the national news media, folks like the all-volunteer United Mountain Defense, who have been on the ground in Harriman from the very day the spill occurred. One of the first things UMD did was to start blogging. They posted pictures, videos and updates that kept the world appraised of the situation when most everyone else was on holiday.

Dave Cooper, a long-time anti-mountaintop removal activist who travels the country with his Mountaintop Removal Road Show, then ran with the news, posting videos from Knoxville News (which has also done a great job getting information out) and getting in touch with and contacting Sierra Club, which posted blog posts of their own.

It was like wildfire (or a huge coal ash wave) from that point on. Freelance journalist Amy Gahran started a campaign on Twitter to tag stories about the spill. More YouTube videos appeared. When the Riverkeepers and I paddled the Emory River to get water samples, I twittered our experience in real time, and later uploaded our videos and experiences on YouTube and FaceBook. It was actually through Twitter that Huffington Post, another example of new media, asked me to blog about the TVA disaster.

Then, directly impacted citizens of Harriman, TN, after shaking off the shock I imagine they felt, started to tell their stories through this new media. One especially poignant blog is written by a woman whose grandson became sick soon after the spill. She is angry, and understandably so. One of her blog post headings says it all, “If We Don’t Ask Questions, We won’t get ANY answers. NO ONE can tell me to stop….”

I am hopeful we will see even more examples of this new media from the impacted residents. The newest video from a resident who goes by “Molly,” intermixes personal before and after images of the Emory River- some with her kids and pets- with media clips and dramatic music. Not only does it give us a peek into what these residents are going through, but hopefully gives these residents some feeling of catharsis. Call it art therapy with a digital twist.

It is important to tell stories, as well as for those stories to be heard. They are what connect us to our fellow human beings, and are the vehicles to deliver lessons we desperately need to learn. Hopefully, the “old media” will take note that if they don’t get the story out, somebody else with a computer can and will.

We cannot let the story of this coal ash disaster, which experts are already calling “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States,” fade away. All media, new and old, cannot allow that to happen.

PS. Thanks to C-SPAN for NOT televising the Senate Oversight Hearing on the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Recent Major Coal Ash Spill.


“Cost” versus Cost- Appalachian Voices versus Coal Industry

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | Posted by Sandra Diaz | No Comments

At a forum about mountaintop removal and Dominion’s proposed Wise County plant hosted by Temple Rodef Shalom and coorganized by the Falls Church Presbyterian Church the evening of April 30, one participant used business—as opposed to ecological—economics to make the case for coal. And to those who know that not all economics are created equal, it went over about as well as “valley fill.”

About 35 people turned out for the forum. They heard first from Joe Lucas, who helped form Americans for Balanced Energy Choices in 1999 and is now the communications vice president for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). Following Lucas, Mike McCoy, a field organizer for Appalachian Voices, and Rory McIlmoil, who wrote his master’s thesis on the elimination of MTR in West Virginia, gave a short slide presentation. The forum was moderated by Steve Mufson, a reporter and editor for The Washington Post for 17 years and now the newspaper’s energy correspondent.

Lucas opened by stating the three things he believes everyone can agree on: “We need to protect the environment”; “We enjoy the benefits of energy,” in this case, electricity; and “The cost of energy matters.” He didn’t really address the first point. As for the second, he mentioned the skyrocketing amount of electricity we use, and offered himself as an example—one person who grew up in a modest house in Kentucky, and who now has five TVs plugged into his walls. And as for cost, he wore the hat of a traditional economist, someone who believes we can—and should—grow forever and the only way to do that is by having energy that is relatively inexpensive.

The setting helped contribute to the civil tone of those in attendance, but my mind roiled over some of the things Lucas said: “I’ve driven through West Virginia and I’ve driven through Kentucky and we still have a lot of mountains there.” Let’s see…470 mountains in Appalachia leveled, 29 of those in Virginia.

Lucas even invoked someone responsible for the deaths of an estimated 20 million people last century: “If you’re going to have an omelet, you’re going to have to break some eggs,” Lucas said, attributing this quotation to Stalin, though it was probably New York Times reporter Walter Duranty who said this.

As someone who lived in Russia after college and has studied the “man of steel’s” crimes, my stomach churned upon hearing this. In the context of people who live in Appalachia and who are seeing their land destroyed, this went beyond insensitive. Whose eggs? Whose omelet? Then again, given Stalin’s environmental crimes and the displacement and exile of entire groups of people during his reign of terror, the quotation may be apt.

Attendees asked a number of questions and some commented on coal’s contribution to global warming as well as the ability to sequester carbon dioxide.

I wanted to know—and I’m still seeking an answer—whether coal is, in effect, a net energy loser, strictly on cost grounds. Lucas said, “Absolutely not.” But if you factor in the rising price of diesel and transportation as well as the peaking of coal itself (Lucas repeated the oft-stated “250 years” left), is it or is it not a “loser” like corn ethanol?

If, like the ecological economists, you factor in all the externalities, including the destruction of the mountains, then coal certainly is a “loser” for you won’t derive the benefits you would from keeping the mountains intact. No forestry, which done selectively, could be maintained indefinitely. No recreational opportunities. No food, by way of hunting or the gathering of mushrooms or medicinals, nuts or berries. And, most of all, no further opportunities for the human spirit to derive the kind of sustenance it needs.

People can and do make money off net energy losers. But in the big scheme of energy, we can no longer afford them. We never really could. It’s just that we haven’t known where our energy comes from. But we are starting to learn—and we’ve got to learn, if we are to understand the real costs of the way we live.

Leigh Glenn is a resident of McLean, Va. She notes that this was the second MTR forum in as many nights. One on April 29 was all about MTR and its effects and was cosponsored by Immanuel on the Hill and Trinity United Methodist Church in Alexandria. Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light, which works with congregations to reduce their energy consumption, helped put together both events.


Florida Jumpin’ Off the Coal Train

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 | Posted by Sandra Diaz | No Comments

In a number of setbacks for the coal industry, the state of Florida has turned down 2 coal-fired power plants in the past month. Republican governor of Florida Charlie Crist has come out in support of these recent decisions, saying the future of coal as fuel for generating electricity in Florida is “not looking good.”

One of the proposed power plants, if built, would have been the largest coal-fired plant in the country & located just 68 miles from the Everglades National Park in Glades County. A unanimous decision was made by the Florida Power Commission day to deny Florida Power and Light’s proposal. Governor Crist applauded their decision by saying, “The Public Service Commission… made the right decision for the environment, the right decision for the Everglades and the right decision for Florida.”

Then a month later, the partnership of local electric companies planning to build a new coal plant in Taylor County, Florida, suspended its efforts in the face of “growing concerns about greenhouse gas emissions.”

Once again the governor showed his approval with the decision, adding,

“We’re obviously moving in a different direction and I think we need to continue to explore solar, wind, nuclear, other alternatives that are clean emission. Continuing to rely on foreign oil and coal, I don’t think, is in the best interest of our state.”

Not to mention, in the best interest of the communities of Appalachia, whose mountains would be destroyed to feed these new coal plants.

Read more: Florida moving away from coal as power source of future



 

 


Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube