The We Campaign presents:
$427 million. That’s what the oil and coal industries spent during the first half of 2008 on lobbying and advertising. They’re protecting their interests – and hurting ours.
This ad is running on TV right now, but we need millions more to see it. The special interests will outspend us, but we can compete head-to-head with them when we find ways to share these messages for free.
We want 50,000 people to watch this ad in the next 72 hours. Will you help?
President Bush, against the advice of most experts, will officially remove the “West Virginia Flying Squirrel” from the Endangered Species list today.
Formally called the Virginia northern flying squirrel, but better known as the West Virginia northern flying squirrel, the subspecies is as old as the mastodons. It lives in clusters atop the highest Appalachian peaks of West Virginia and adjacent Highland County, Va. About 10,000 years ago, it became isolated from other northern flying squirrel species when ice sheets covering North America receded.
Why does that matter (besides the known fact that flying squirrels are incredibly cool, and as old as mastodons)? Because the squirrels are now one more thing in Appalachia which coal companies can indiscriminately destroy.
The delisting would remove the general prohibition against killing the squirrels or seriously damaging vital habitat. It would also relieve developers of various projects – from housing developments to wind farms or strip mines – from going through Endangered Species Act reviews or writing habitat conservation plans.
And in another great moment for science under the Bush Administration, the books are cooked. And they don’t even try to hide it.
But Kieran Suckling, policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said that the government’s numbers are bogus.
For one thing, the agency news release does not make clear that many of those 1,200 squirrels were probably “re-captures” of the same animal. Suckling analyzed the Interior data and estimated that there were really only 654 individual squirrels included.
In its Federal Register notice scheduled for publication today, the Interior Department conceded that the 1,200 figure was probably wrong, but said Suckling’s analysis was also off. The real figure is probably about 908, about 20 percent fewer squirrels than cited in the agency news release, according to the Federal Register notice.
Take THAT science!
From Harold Meyersons otherwise lame column about Obama and America’s anger problems called, Can He Be a Working-Class Hero:
The unions will rely heavily on one-on-one meetings that shop stewards and local leaders hold with their members. “We’ll have to fight with our own members on this,” public employee union President Jerry McEntee, who also chairs the AFL-CIO’s political committee, said at Sunday’s rally. “We’ve got to say to our Appalachian members who say they can’t vote for him, he’s black — we gotta tell them that’s [expletive]!
I appreciate this sentiment from Mr. McEntee that racism is “[expletive]!”. However, this tired narrative that “Appalachia is more racist than the rest of America” was started during the Democratic primaries because Hillary Clinton did much better than Barack Obama in West Virginia and Kentucky, and the Appalachian regions of Virginia, Ohio, and Tennessee. I wrote about and attempted to rebut this narrative often (here, here, here, and here among other places), in an attempt to defend Appalachia from charges that we are some “racist” backwater despite the fact that voters in every state described race as an important factor in their decision.
Appalachia, of course, has a long, mixed, and often progressive history on racial issues. [i.e.: the founding of West Virginia] The primaries in Appalachia played out precisely as you would have expected if you were simply looking demographic performance from other regions of the country, and the demographics of Appalachia. The human make-up of Appalachia was tailor-made for Clinton, and the Clinton brand is very strong in Appalachia. But, thats much too complicated for a complacent media to fit into a soundbyte. So we get the media saying “Clinton voters are racist…in Appalachia…because…umm…Appalachians are stupid hillbillies…and…umm…Clinton is white and Obama is black…and Appalachian voters don’t think about anything but being racist…and…umm…don’t have any issues…except for that they love the economy and eat clean coal for breakfast.”
Here is a list of the total percentage of Dem primary voters per state who said race is “the most important important factor, or one of many important factors”
From MSNBC exit polls:
Mississippi: (30)
Alabama (28)
Louisiana (25)
Illinois (22)
West Virginia (22)
Georgia (21)
Tennessee (21)
Kentucky (21)
Ohio (20)
Oklahoma (20)
Missouri: (19)
Pennsylvania (19)
Texas (19)
Arkansas (18)
Delaware (18)
New Jersey (18)
New York (18)
North Carolina (18)
Rhode Island (17)
California (17)
Indiana (16)
Massachusetts: (16)
Connecticut (15)
New Mexico (14)
Arizona (14)
Vermont (13)
Utah (8)
Kentucky and WV are not, statistically speaking, significantly more “racist” than Missourri, Pennsylvania, Deleware, Jersey, New York, North Carolina…and on down the line. And we are just as “racist” as Illinois, which elected Barack Obama to the Senate with 70% of the vote. Does Appalachia have issues with race and racism? I would say “Yes, but so does almost everywhere else in America. Racism is a worldwide problem and has been since the beginning of recorded history.” Race is just one of thousands of reasons to vote for or against Barack Obama, and its sad to think that the media (and even progressive media like DailyKos and Jon Stewart) can just call Appalachia “racist” when a lot of our people vote for someone else besides the candidate the media considers “the black guy.”
I’ll also note, that Obama leads McCain among “working-class white voters”:
But even among white workers — a group of voters that has been targeted by both parties as a key to victory in November — Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47 percent to 37 percent, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate.
So are white-working class voters not racist yet? Thank goodness Americans have each other, and the internet to communicate and spread information, because our political media is pathetic.
Appalachian coal is a dead end road. With coal production declining across the Appalachian region and prices nearly tripling since 2007, economists and energy analysts are increasingly saying that Appalachian coal is the wrong investment. In Appalachia alone, we’ve seen over 1 million acres of America’s oldest mountains destroyed forever, 1200 miles of headwater streams buried, and some of the highest poverty in the nation due to mountaintop removal mining. But, though we have lost much, the people of Appalachia are fighting back through organizing and advocacy from Charleston to Frankfort to Washington DC.
Coal River Mountain, located in Raleigh County, West Virginia is one of America’s Most Endangered Mountains. The communities surrounding the mountain have a rich and mixed history with America’s most polluting fossil fuel. As the name implies, many of the towns in the Coal River Valley grew up with the expansion of coal-mining. But, 150 years after coal-mining began in Appalachia, much of the central and southern Appalachians stand devastated by mining, and impoverished by coal companies hell-bent on keeping coal “cheap” at the expense of our land and people. The communities of the Coal River Valley are no different. Except for the people of the Coal River Valley – having seen the devastation that coal causes – have seen enough devastation to know that they need to take a new direction.
…
When you’re talking about Appalachia and coal, the word “battle” is not used lightly. From Matewan, to Harlan County, to Blair Mountain, violence and bloodshed are a very real part of our history. Now the inherently American legacy of the miners of Blair Mountain, courageous coalfield labor organizers, and the grassroots movement that led to surface mining laws in the 70s has reached a head. The Appalachian people have drawn our line in the sand. We stand here together to tell companies that would practice mountaintop removal to stop NOW. With popular support for clean energy, a better alternative, and literally everything at stake, the Appalachian people will win this battle of wind vs. fire.
The Battle for Coal River Mountain…
—
There are two potential futures for Coal River Mountain, WV and the people of the Coal River Valley.
Industrial Wind Power (top: wind potential) OR a Mountaintop Removal site (below: permit area in black)
Remember that mountaintop removal does the same thing to our economy that it does to the environment. Industrial wind development will create more jobs in the short AND long-term, as well as more energy in the long-term.
Coal companies have been to the neighborhood before, destroying several nearby mountains and leaving Raleigh County with an 18.5% poverty rate.
Coal River Mountain remains one of the most potentially productive spots in the surrounding coalfields for wind. You’ll notice many areas of class 4, 5, 6, and even class 7 wind potential here. This is a prime spot for wind power, and the future of Appalachia’s clean energy economy.
Coal River Mountain is approximately 20,550 acres in size, and 30 miles of if its ridges receive commercially viable wind speeds. There is room on Coal River Mountain to place 220 2.0MW wind turbines. Such a project would have the potential to produce 1.16 Million Megawatt-hours (MWh), enough to power 150,000 homes.
On Coal River Mountain, three surface-mining permits either approved, pending or in formation, together span 5,782 acres. As currently proposed, these “mines” would reduce wind potential to a point that a Coal River Mountain Wind Farm would become commercially unviable. The ensuing ecological devastation will be immense.
According to Coal River Mountain Watch:
These mines [on Coal River Mountain] will be at the heads of Horse Creek, Dry Creek, and Rock Creek, and will surround nearly the entire length of Sycamore Creek, considered to be the most pristine stream in the area. Communities are situated at the mouth of each of these streams.
But if coal companies have their way, they would blast Coal River Mountain right off the map. In fact, by overlaying permit data onto a topographical map in Google Earth, we can show you what the hypothetical coal company vision of Coal River Mountain would look like. On the left side of the image, you can see what a mountaintop removal site on Coal River Mountain would look potentially like.
There is so much at stake in Appalachia. Wind power is cheaper to extract. Wind power is cheaper to produce. Wind power has zero emissions. Wind power does not require us to tear down our mountains. Wind power will provide greater economic benefit. Wind power will provide more jobs. Wind power will provide more energy. The benefits are endless. Mountaintop removal has to end and it has to end now.
We all stand to gain by supporting the efforts of CRMW to save Coal River Mountain from mountaintop removal by setting up industrial wind energy.
If you can join the effort, and would rather see a windmill than a toxic mountaintop removal mine, please sign the Coal River Wind Petition and check out CoalRiverWind.org.
1. This week’s featured Blogs
Kate Sheppard over at Grist gives us On a Wind and a Prayer:
“This is the first alternative ever proposed that has a strong economic component, that has real benefits to it that could be brought to local communities,” said Rory McIlmoil, campaign coordinator for Coal River Wind. “The wind potential would be destroyed if they continue with the strip mining.”
The advocates from Coal River Wind are still open to allowing Massey to mine there as long as it’s at least 300 feet below the surface. They argue that the underground mine would actually create more jobs for local residents than an MTR site, which relies mostly on heavy machinery.
2. MTR Fact of the Week
According to Dr. Matthew Wasson of Appalachian Voices, energy produced by the Coal River Mountain Wind farm would be cheaper than energy produced by Duke Energy’s proposed “Cliffside” coal-fired power plant in North Carolina. So much for “cheap” coal.
Cliffside Energy Cost: $0.150 / kWh
Coal River Mountain Wind Energy Cost: $0.094 / kWh
3. Mountain Video
(Congratulations to the production team. This was one of the top 15 non-profit videos on YouTube last week!…)
Coal River Mountain, as featured on America’s Most Endangered Mountains
I also highly recommend watching these:
Rory McIlmoil and Lorelei Scarboro on this weeks’ Decision Makers:
Part I
Part II
Part III
4. Featured Activist
Lorelei Scarboro
Lorelei Scarbro was born and raised in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia. She is the daughter and wife of coal miners, and has been active in the fight to save rural schools in West Virginia. She is now fighting for a clean just energy future for West Virginia and the Nation. Her writing, such as Winning with wind: Hope for Coal River Mountain in the Coal Valley news is spreading hope for people in the valley that they can save their economy and their mountains simultaneously by ending mountaintop removal and supporting industrial wind energy.
From an interview on Grist:
“My father was a coal miner. My grandfather was a coal miner. I have two brothers that are coal miners, my son-in-law is a coal miner,” says Scarbro, a life-long West Virginian and probably not someone you’d expect to be an outspoken opponent of coal. But Scarbro says, “I believe that the time for coal has come and gone, and I think we’re destroying our earth with fossil fuels. That’s the reason that we’re in the climate crisis that we’re in. I believe that we need to start transitioning.”
“It’s like living in a war zone when you have to sit in you home, you hear the blasting, and you breathe in the coal dust and you breathe in the rock dust,” says Scarbro. “To live with your house shaking every day, the foundation cracking, the windows rattling, it is really like living in a war zone.”
Learn more about Lorelei by watching this video on CoalRiverWind.org and this video on iLoveMountains.org.
5. Mountain Music
Check out Tim O Brien and Kathy Mattea original of “Walk the Way the Wind Blows” here
Walk the Way the Wind Blows
Also couldn’t help but put up a link to Bob D’s Subterranean Homesick Blues.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows!
Thats all for this week.
peace,
JW
We all know that coal poisons our planet, removes our mountains, and pollutes our precious water sources. A connection that we often miss, is how big coal and fossil fuel industries have a significant hand in dirtying up American politics.
Appalachian Voices and Oil Change International are proud to release a new interactive tool providing the first comprehensive look at the cash mined by Members of Congress from America’s coal industry. Check out how much coal money is going to your member of congress at FollowtheCoalMoney.org
By searching for your Congressman, you can see a “relationship map.” Unlike a physical map, where points are positioned at a geographic location, the icons for the companies and legislators are placed so that they are that they are as close as possible to whomever they contribute to or receive contributions from.
Appalachian Voices Director Mary Anne Hitt says:
When it comes time to cash checks, coal is still king. If the American people want real action on energy, they need to know whether their Member of Congress is working for them or their coal cash contributors. We have better ways of producing energy than blowing the tops off mountains and destroying the climate and communities
Natural Gas is Responsible
Dear Appalachian Voices,
With reference to your Spring 2008 Appalachian Voice on natural gas drilling – As a “clean fuel” natural gas is reasonably available in this country. Coal seam gas extraction has garnered increased attention due to its availability; but it is NOT a new energy source. In southern Appalachia, Energen (a large regional natural gas distributor and driller) has done extensive drilling in the Alabama region for at least 20 years. There is a strong movement in this direction as it is an available resource. Energy prices have reached levels that make this resource more exploitable On the positive side is that technology has become increasingly effective in drilling. Now this technology needs to be applied to limiting damages.
There is without question a need to limit environmental damage. However, drilling is not as invasive as mining activities as it has a more constrained footprint. The effort should be placed on assuring that property owner rights are respected and that environmental measures and clean-up are maintained after drilling ceases. This includes reseeding local grasses as well as native trees to integrate with the landscape.
Sincerely
Charles B. Jones Jr.
Knoxville TN
Kudos from Nashville
Dear Appalachian Voices,
Thank you for posting your website. At 82+ I read Appalachian Voices and marvel at the diversified and informative articles in each issue.
For someone who strongly believes in history/ heritage /legacy, I congratulate your efforts!
Keep up your wonderful project! God bless our nation and you.
Nick Christodoulou
Nashville TN
Note: Mr. Christodoulou grew up in Welch, WV and has written extensively about the Appalachia of his youth. He was interviewed about his submarine service in World War II on usmilitaryhistory.com podcasts. Look for the podcast episode “The Cook and the Scabbardfish.”
Residents of West Virginia’s Coal River Valley have launched an exciting new campaign to bring a wind farm to Coal River Mountain.
Coal River Mountain is one of the last mountains left intact in the beautiful Coal River Valley of West Virginia. However, Massey Energy has plans to mine 6600 acres of the mountain – almost 10 square miles of what would be the tallest peaks ever to be mined in West Virginia.
Fortunately, there is an alternative to mountaintop removal mining – wind power. This is a unique opportunity to move our nation and West Virginia toward the production of clean energy, and to preserve our nation’s mountains for generations to come.
But the best part of the wind project is that it could generate electricity at a lower cost than a new coal-fired power plant such as Duke Energy’s proposal for the Cliffside power station in North Carolina. Considering that:
- The cost of building coal-fired power plants has more than doubled in the last few years;
- The price of Central Appalachian coal is up more than 500% since 2000;
- Congress is poised to act on climate change legislation that would drive the cost of coal power even higher; can we afford not to invest in clean and renewable energy?
Please visit www.CoalRiverWind.org for more information and to get involved. And don’t forget to sign the petition and tell your friends to do the same.
Benefits of a Coal River Mountain wind farm:
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Sources
1. “Duke Energy Carolinas’ Advanced Clean Coal Cliffside Unit 6 Cost Estimate Report, June 29, 2007” NC Utilities Commission Docket No. E-7, Sub 790
http://www.duke-energy.com/pdfs/Cliffside_-_June_2007_NCUC_Cost_Estimate_Update.pdf.
2. Coal River Wind Fact Sheet – accessed 20 August, 2008 (http://www.coalriverwind.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/crm_factsheet.pdf)
3. Based on DOE/NETL-402/061308, June, 2008, “The Impact of Advanced Syngas Conversion Technologies on the Cost of Electricity from Gasification-based Power Generation Platforms.” Numbers were derived from parameters in the “SCPC” Baseline power system example in the LCOE model (Table 1, page 4) with adjustments made for stated capacity and current cost figures for the Duke Cliffside proposal.
4. Source: CPUC GHG Model Documentation: New Wind Generation Resource, Cost, and Performance Assumptions (www.ethree.com/GHG/10%20RPS%20Assumptions%20v2.doc). Based on Wind Busbar Levelized Costs by Zone model (Table B) using a base capital cost of $1,635 /kW installed capacity. Model inputs adjusted based on the Coal River Wind Project fact sheet (reference 2).
5. Based on average US residential customer consumption of 920 kWH/month). Source: EIA/DOE Electric Sales, Revenue, and Price, 2006. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/esr/esr_sum.html
6. Based on the spot market price ($140 per short ton) and Btu content of Central Appalachia Coal (Big Sandy/Kanawha 12,500 Btu,1.2 lbSO2/mmBtu) from the EIA weekly coal report for the week of August 22nd, 2008. Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coalnews/coalmar.html. Total coal consumption was determined from the DOE/NETL model (see reference 3) using a Btu content of 12,500 Btu/lb and a transportation cost of 25% above minemouth price (assumption for eastern coal – see reference 3).
By Bill Kovarik
Seventy five years ago, the area where the Gauley River and the New Rivers meet became known as the site of America’s worst industrial tragedy.
The same water power that today attracts recreational enthusiasts from over the world was, at the time, attracting the attention of hydroelectric engineers. They built a massive tunnel that channeled water from the New into the Gualey to generate over 100 megawatts of electricity between 1928 and 1932.
By 1933, news of some kind of disaster was beginning to emerge. Hundreds of men – now estimated at 476, most of them African American — died simply because they were not given protective gear. Most of the victims were buried in common, unmarked graves. Thousands more were permanently injured, unable to walk home to other states, giving Hawks Nest, WV, the appearance of a “town of the living dead,” according to a 1936 magazine article.
The men were killed by silicosis, an “occupational disease” that occurs when workers breathe fine particles of glassy sand that cuts through lung tissues with steady and predictable effect.
The deaths and injuries could have been prevented had the company issued dust masks and used “wet” drilling methods. But wet drilling might have diluted the value of Gauley Mountain’s pure silica that was in the tunnel’s path.
Dust masks were not used because, the company claimed, they did not know about silicosis. Even so, white engineers who took rock samples in the tunnels were using dust masks. Apparently, the lives of African Americans were hardly thought to be worth the cost of the masks.
The racism, arrogance and cruelty was so astonishing, even in the 1930s, that a full scale Congressional investigation was set in motion.
The investigation uncovered heartbreaking stories about whole families wiped out by silicosis, wives having to file suits just to get their husband’s bodies, and parents searching the Hawks Nest workers camps for their missing sons.
The investigation also uncovered a horrific pattern of secret cemeteries, subversion of the law and threats to witnesses by Union Carbide and its contractors.
It concluded that the tunnel project had been carried out “with grave and inhuman disregard for the health, lives and future of the employees.” The committee placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the company: The negligence “was either willful or the result of inexcusable and indefensible ignorance.”
In the end, none of the company officials went to jail. A few families of the victims received settlement checks for a few hundred dollars at most. But most significantly, the laws regarding occupational disease and labor safety were rewritten during the New Deal era with the Hawks Nest incident in mind.
The incident became even more famous when poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote “The Book of the Dead” in 1938 and included many of the documents from the Congressional committee.
Aside from that book, the companies successfully suppressed information about the incident. Even a novel called Hawks Nest by Hubert Skidmore was pulled out of print by the publisher, and Skidmore himself died in a mysterious fire.
As late as the 1970s, historians said they were receiving death threats and facing legal action for trying to uncover the truth about the incident. To this day, many of the grave sites have not been found.
Physician Martin Cherniak was the first historian publish a book on the Gauley disaster. Cherniak said he struggled to maintain his objectivity while writing The Hawks Nest Incident: America’s Worst Industrial Disaster. Ironically, it was published only a few years after Union Carbide’s disaster at Bhopal, India, where 10,000 people died from a cyanide leak at a chemical plant on Dec. 3, 1984.
In 2008, historian Patricia Spangler published The Hawks Nest Tunnel: An Unabridged History. Along with a summary of events, Spangler published hundreds of full original documents surrounding the incident. This valuable work allows us to objectively analyze the disaster while, at the same time, sense the outrage and horror behind the witness testimony and committee reports of the first Gauley disaster 75 years ago.
Today, the tunnel from the New River to the Gauley still generates 107 megawatts of electricity, like it did 75 years ago. Since it uses a public resource, the project was originally to revert in ownership back to the state of WV in the 1980s. However, the state exchanged it for land that was not worth a fraction of the value of the Hawks Nest electrical complex. And the tunnel itself, as a point of fact, was never worth the lives it cost.
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For more information:
Hawks Nest Tunnel: An Unabridged History, by Patricia Spangler. Available for $22.95 (pluse $5 shipping) from the West Virginia Book Co. http://www.wvbookco.com/ 125 Central Avenue, Charleston WV 25302
Martin Cherniak, The Hawk’s Nest Incident, Yale University press, 1987.
By Noa Davidai
The only known mountain lions still residing in the Appalachian Mountains are in special nature preserves, such as this beautiful cougar living at Grandfather Mountain’s Nature Preserve. Photo courtesy of Grandfather Mountain
Pop quiz: Which mammal has the most widespread distribution in the Western Hemisphere? No, it’s not the rat, the squirrel, or even the deer. It is us, ladies and gentleman—human beings. But this was not always, or naturally, the case. In the not-so-distant past, the mammal with the most extensive natural range in the Americas was—a large cat.
This is no ordinary cat. It is a cat of mystery. A creature often surrounded by fear and misunderstanding. And no wonder. We cannot even agree on its name. Sometimes called “the Cat of One Color”, its many aliases include: puma, panther, mountain lion, cougar, as well as catamount (the mascot of Western Carolina University).
The cougar (the name preferred by experts) is the largest of the small cats. It is classified as a small cat because it purrs like a housecat instead of roaring like a lion. Yet this once-common neighbor of ours is now practically eliminated from the Appalachians. Its mystique is such that locals and visitors alike constantly claim to have seen one, much like a ghost in the attic.
Should the fate of this cat be of any concern to those of us living beside these beautiful mountains?
Through most of his career, biologist and naturalist Donald Linzey has been haunted by the intrigue of the cougar. In 1963, as a young doctoral student from Cornell, Linzey discovered the marvels of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as he conducted research there on the flying squirrel. Subsequently he became a park naturalist, then principal investigator for endangered species research in the southern Appalachians and a biology professor at Wytheville Community College in Virginia. He has stayed close to the Smokies both in location and affection.
In 1978, Linzey organized a conference on the Endangered Species of Virginia, the first one of its kind in the state. It was at this conference that his devotion to the cougar arose. Linzey’s research funding has focused on a variety of other projects, but he has voluntarily dedicated the last 30 of his life to verifying the status and ensuring the survival of the cougar.
That commitment brings Linzey to various lectures, speaking on the “Current Status of Mountain Lions in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”
Imagine your kitty at home (or the one on the street). Multiply its size by about 10. Now your tabby is about 125-150 lbs. Paint its fur a light tan color. Elongate its tail so that it drags down with a curved tip that just scrapes the ground. Now paint that tip black, and you’ve got yourself a cougar, a beautiful and majestic cougar.
This cougar is a shy and solitary animal, needs large ranges and prefers to remain elusive, . Linzey says. It even limits interactions with its own kind to an occasional “booty call” with the opposite sex. A mother will have 2-4 kittens that remain with her until they are 1-2 years old. And though Mama’s fur is smooth and patternless, baby cougars are spotted until about the time they leave Mama.
Though the cougar was once widely distributed in the Americas, the majority of the current cougar populations are out West, with a small representation in Nova Scotia and Florida. Many of these populations are still heavily hunted. Between 1907 and 1970, around 70,000 cougars were killed in the United States, . Linzey reports. It was once believed that there are many different kinds of cougars, and therefore distinct populations in various areas of the United States. But a recent DNA study by . Melanie Culver at the University of Arizona has shown that worldwide, there are only six different species of cougars, and only one of those is found in North America.
The cougar is so notorious and alluring that experts such as Linzey work round the clock to verify reported sightings of the cat. To date, Linzey possesses the only two known photographs of cougars in the Smokies, though he feels that there have been several other credible sightings. There is, however, no evidence of a breeding population. Claims of cougar sightings are constantly streaming in, but few have actually seen this ghost-like cat. Usually, they turn out to be a short-tailed, tufty-cheeked bobcat or even a house cat.
Some people claim they saw a large black panther, but no black cougar exists in natural history records anywhere in the world, says Linzey. Is this fascination with seeing cougars born out of longing or fear? Do we want the cougar back, or
would we rather it stayed gone?
Though there is no current effort to reintroduce an eastern cougar population, there is discussion of this possibility.
Some would say that the cougar naturally belongs in the Appalachians and is only gone because we have destroyed its habitat and hunted it to near extinction. But, is the cougar a danger to humans? Linzey and other experts tell us that encounters with cougars are rare due to their shy and solitary nature. On top of that, the risk of attack is quite low. For example, Yosemite National Park, home to a healthy population of cougars, has millions of visitors a year. The number of cougar attacks in the park’s history – none.
If the risk to humans is almost negligible, would the cougar contribute to our Appalachian ecosystem? The cougar is a top predator, feeding primarily on deer. It therefore plays an integral part in balancing wildlife populations. We certainly see that in a cougar-less eastern United States, deer populations are exploding and causing many problems, Linzey says.
To help the mountain lion survive, we need to educate the public, Linsey says.
“We don’t want more people shooting them and killing them off just because they’re afraid of them, so we have to teach the public how to live with them just like we live with black bears and grizzly bears and grey wolves out west, and everybody seems to be getting along pretty well.”
The Upper Watauga River just got a new friend.
Donna Marie Lisenby, an award-winning environmental advocate, began serving on the staff of Appalachian Voices as the first Upper Watauga Riverkeeper this June.
Lisenby will be a full-time public advocate for the entire watershed including the Watauga River, the Elk River, Roan Creek and Watauga Lake.
Her job with Appalachian Voices is to serve as the leading advocate for the health of the Watauga River watershed and provide a visible presence on the river as well as its tributaries.
In effect, she will speak for the river, its problems and potential solutions while ensuring enforcement and compliance with environmental laws. She will work as investigator, scientist, lawyer, and advocate, protecting the public’s right to
clean water and healthy fisheries.
All Waterkeepers worldwide serve as the representative of the public’s interest in clean water and healthy fisheries by providing testimony, expert opinion and/or presentations at city, county, state and federal proceedings and meetings.
The Riverkeeper is responsible for organizing a diverse constituency of people in the upper Watauga River drainage, including water drinkers, swimmers, fishers, boaters, property owners, farmers and business owners for the purposes of 1) expanding the number of people who advocate for healthy rivers; 2) raising public awareness of River issues and; 3) providing training for citizen activists.
Lisenby will also review development activities, facilities that discharge wastewater and any other potential threat to water quality and quantity then actively seek solutions while facilitating public education about river issues. It is important for a Riverkeeper to establish and maintain relationships with local and state elected and appointed officials, especially local officials engaged in planning, zoning, enforcement, and other areas directly related to the health and well being of the river. In addition to partnership approaches, if necessary to protect the public’s right to clean water, a Riverkeeper will use litigation and administrative challenges against polluters and government in appropriate circumstances. Through the support and vision of Appalachian Voices and its members, Lisenby will protect the public’s water from polluters.
One of the many public services a Riverkeeper provides is to identify and respond to citizen complaints so consistently and diligently that the Riverkeeper becomes recognized by the community as the foremost investigator of water pollution problems. If you observe water pollution anywhere in the North Carolina or Tennessee portions of the Watauga Lake watershed, please call our toll-free pollution hotline at 1-877-277-8642.
Dealing with mercury from coal fired power plants is one of the most important issues on the Watauga River.
In 2007, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) issued a fish consumption advisory for Watauga Lake for largemouth bass and channel catfish due to high levels of mercury. Both the EPA and the FDA have established a fish flesh limit of .3 parts per million for methylmercury, mercury’s most toxic form. Eating fish with methylmercury levels higher than .3 ppm is considered potentially detrimental to the health of humans, particularly children. At one sampling site in the Roan Creek embayment of Watauga Lake, samples of 15 largemouth bass contained an average of .59 ppm of methylmercury.
That is almost double the safe level.
The high level of contamination seems odd for such a pristine mountain lake, located far from pollution sources and bordered by the Cherokee National Forest, several state parks and wildlife management areas. Yet the U.S. has 1,100 coal-fired power plants that release more than 48 tons of mercury into the air every year, accounting for more than 40 percent of airborne mercury emissions in the nation.
Coal-fired electric power plants are the largest source of anthropogenic, or human-caused, mercury air emissions in the United States. Mercury is deposited onto the ground or directly into waterbodies as fall out from the air emissions of coal-fired power plants. It can be washed from the land and carried to rivers, streams, and lakes by stormwater. When elemental mercury lands in water, it is transformed to methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury, by microorganisms found in water and sediment. Small aquatic organisms consume mercury as they feed, and then they are eaten by larger and larger animals, with the mercury accumulating at each step; this is called bioaccumulation. Fish that are higher in the food chain, such as largemouth bass have much higher mercury concentrations than fish that are lower on the food chain. Organic mercury concentrations can be more than 1,000 times greater in the fish than in the surrounding water. Humans become exposed when they eat fish that are contaminated with mercury.
High levels of mercury in developing fetuses and young children can irrevocably effect their neurological development leading to development delays and learning disabilities. Babies are exposed to mercury from their mothers’ blood in the womb, as well as from breast milk. Mercury poisoning can also cause lung, kidney, heart, and immune system damage. An estimated eight percent of women of childbearing age have unsafe levels of mercury and the leading mercury researcher at the United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 410,000 babies born each year in the U.S. have unsafe levels of mercury. Based on Centers for Disease Control data, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services recently estimated that “at least 13,677 children per year” are born in NC with blood mercury levels that place them at risk for lifelong learning disabilities, fine motor and attention deficits, and lowered IQ.
Just 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury can contaminate a 25-acre lake. Partial testing of less than 60% of North Carolina waters by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources determined that 1000 miles of North Carolina rivers plus an additional 29,522 acres of freshwater lakes, reservoirs and impoundments are impaired for mercury. Mercury impaired more acres of water in North Carolina lakes than any other source including Chlorophyll a, turbidity, high pH, dioxin, nutrients, low pH and aquatic weeds.
The contamination of Watauga Lake and the human health impacts of mercury led the Watauga Riverkeeper to legally challenge the construction of a new coal fired power plant at Cliffside, NC by Duke Energy. Adding more coal fired power plants not only pollutes the air, destroys the Appalachian mountains through the devastating practice of mountain top removal and contributes to global warming but it also poisons waterways with the toxic heavy metal mercury. Coal fired power plants are a quadruple harm to the environment. They must be stopped and after only two months on the job, the Watauga Riverkeeper is doing her part to protect the Watauga River and its watershed from pollution.
Appalachian Voice will be keeping track of the Upper Watagua efforts in future issues, especially sedimentation, which another important problem.
Donna Lisenby
For the past 10 years, Lisenby served at the helm of the Catawba Riverkeeper Program and was recognized as “Charlotte’s Best Advocate” by Charlotte Magazine in May, 2000. She was also recognized as a “1999 Guardian of the Environment” by The Charlotte Observer, In addition, she was selected as a recipient of the Charlotte Coalition’s “Blue Thumb” award.
The Catawba Riverkeeper Program is also the only environmental organization to receive three Best of Charlotte Awards for “Best Effort to Improve the Environment” in 1999, 2000 and 2004. Other awards include the Mountain Island Lake Marine Commission’s Blue Fin Award for 2003, the Lake James Task Force Award for Outstanding and Distinguished Service in 2004, and the 2005 J. H. “Mac” McSwain Community Service Award for exemplary community service to the Lake Wateree Community.
In 2005, Ms. Lisenby was elected by her fellow Waterkeepers to serve as a board member of Waterkeeper Alliance.
The Waterkeeper Alliance is the international organization led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. There are currently 177 local Waterkeeper Programs in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Australia, Africa, India, China, Europe and Russia. Waterkeeper Alliance and its member organizations around the globe spend each day protecting the waterways upon which all living beings depend. The Alliance approves new Waterkeeper programs and licenses the use of the Waterkeeper names. The Waterkeeper program names, such as “Riverkeeper,” “Lakekeeper,” “Baykeeper,” “Coastkeeper” and others, are synonymous with effective citizen action.