Letters

Dear Appalachian Voice,

I am enclosing with this letter a picture of my grandson. I wish I could show it to all of those greedy people here who are taking our forests, our mountains, and just destroying it all. I pray that one day he won’t have to wear a gas mask and say, “Granddad, what is a tree? Where are all the singing birds and other animals that I hear about?”

I cry about this and about the Indians who see what the greedy ones have done to this earth.

It’s time that all Americans wake up and help put a stop to the greed coming out of Washington. If they don’t stop all the mining, drilling and logging, we’ll have no clean air and clean water left. We are getting closer to that every day.

Don’t just sit back and complain, help us to save our own lives as well as our children’s and grand-children’s. I know with the help of you people and God’s help we can do it TOGETHER.

God bless you and yours and all good things.

Katie Marie Harrison
Westville, FL

Dear Appalachian Voice,

I am writing concerning the timber cutting and sludge pond building by the coal industry here in West Virginia. I see death and destruction coming to the people who live in low-lying areas of our state as a result. You can’t take off the mountaintops and eliminate the trees and not have flooding devastation. I can’t understand why our Governor and our Senators allow this type of thing to go on and will not hold the coal companies responsible.

You cannot build sludge ponds out of rock and dirt and expect them to hold – they’d have to be built out of cement and steel. If you live in the lowlands of Logan County, beware of the next flood. A friend of mine wanted to buy flood insurance for his home, but it would cost his family $1500/ year – who can afford it?

I also saw where our politicians were saying we need all this flat land. Well, I can show you plenty of flat land that has been stripped and is now barren – where are all the companies wanting to create jobs there?

May God have mercy on us people in the valleys.

Denver Mitchell
Rossmore, WV