Seeing is Believing

The coal industry is fond of saying that there is no mountaintop removal taking place in Tennessee, so we wanted to see for ourselves. Appalachian Voices recently teamed up with the filming crew from “Coal Country” and SouthWings’ award winning pilot Susan Lapis to take an aerial tour of coal-mining counties in the Volunteer State. What we saw, and photographed, was shocking. Using the images we captured, we’ve created a new online resource where you can judge for yourself whether or not the mountains of Tennessee are having their tops removed. Flying over the Cumberland Plateau in October during peak leaf week, we were also able to capture some stunningly beautiful views of Elk Valley, TVA’s 29 MW wind farm on Buffalo Mountain, and some of the most beautiful and biodiverse ecosystems in the United States. Visit AppVoices.org/TNMTR, and we invite questions and submissions to TN@Appvoices.org.