Appalachian Voices Celebrates 15 Years — And You’re Invited!

Join us on Sat., June 21 for Artists for Appalachia — a celebration of our 15th anniversary, our annual membership meeting and a special fundraising event.

The venue for the evening will be the renowned Jefferson Theater in in Charlottesville, Va. Artists for Appalachia will include traditional mountain music, readings and revelry as we come together to celebrate our past and present work to protect the air, water, land and people of Appalachia and to raise funds to continue our work for years to come. Special guests will include Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kathy Mattea, Michael Johnathon, Daniel Martin Moore, Clara Bingham and Bill Haney, producer and director of the award winning film “The Last Mountain,” and local Charlottesville folk band favorites, The Honey Dewdrops.

The event is free for current Appalachian Voices members. New and renewing members can join for as little as $35 and receive a ticket to the event and a membership. Reserved seating is available for an extra $15 donation, and VIP seating is available but limited and expected to go quickly — call our Charlottesville office at (434) 293-6373 for details.

We look forward to seeing you in Charlottesville to kick off another 15 years of protecting the region we all love.

Tickets to Artists for Appalachia are limited, so be sure to RSVP online or call our office today!

Visit appvoices.org/ArtistsForAppalachia to reserve your seats and to become a member. Can’t attend but want to help our work? Visit appvoices. org/Donate today.

Appalachian Voices Moves to New Headquarters

If you ever visited our office at 191 Howard Street in downtown Boone, N.C., you knew how “cozily” we worked together in a small open space with no windows and no individual offices. To accommodate our growing family of staff, interns and volunteers, Appalachian Voices recently moved the Boone headquarters to a new home at 171 Grand Boulevard. Located in an old Georgian-style house-turned-office-space in downtown Boone, the building has lots of windows, separate offices for each team and is also shared with two excellent nonprofit organizations, Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture and Legal Aid of North Carolina. We are super excited about our new space, and hope you stop by if you’re in the area!

Protecting The Volunteer State’s Scenic Vistas

J.W. Randolph, director of Appalachian Voices’ Tennessee office, has been working up a storm in sunny Tennessee, helping other coalitions and State Senator Eric Stewart promote movement on the Tennessee Scenic Vistas Protection Act in the state’s Senate and House. The bill, which would ban mountaintop removal coal mining in the state, reached the Senate floor before it was sent back to committee — unprecedented in any state with active mountaintop removal coal mining.

Appalachian Treasures Tour “On the Road”

The Appalachian Treasures tour is out West this spring! Lenny Kohm, Appalachian Voices’ campaign director, has been on the road in New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California speaking about mountaintop removal coal mining and its effects on communities in Appalachia. In the Los Angeles area, he was joined by Beverly Walkup of Fayette County, W.Va. This month, our Washington, D.C. Program Director Kate Rooth is headed to Washington state with Amber Whittington of Ameagle, W.Va. to share our passionate views on mountaintop removal with audiences in Seattle, Bellingham, Olympia and the Olympic Peninsula. For upcoming tour dates please check out our schedule at: appvoices.org/apptreasures.

Dr. Wasson, I Presume

In the latest round of congressional attacks on mountaintop removal coal mining regulations, Appalachian Voices’ Director of Programs Dr. Matt Wasson was called to testify on a panel examining the effect of the Office of Surface Mining’s mountaintop removal regulations on jobs and the economy in Appalachia.

Dr. Wasson refuted claims by coal-friendly representatives that surface mining regulations are “job killers” by providing government data showing that Appalachian mining jobs have actually increased by 10 percent since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency enacted regulatory guidance on mountaintop removal coal mining in 2010. In 2011, Appalachian coal mining employment reached its highest level in 15 years.

Congress has held a number of hearings addressing the current administration’s agency oversight of surface coal mining; these hearings have included heated verbal onslaughts against administrators from the EPA and the Office of Surface Mining.