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Paddling Appalachia
With tumbling rivers and cool mountain lakes, Appalachia is a paddler’s paradise. We offer a list of eight great destinations. Whitewater enthusiasts from across the country come to Appalachia’s rivers for their aquatic adrenaline rushes. Sportsmen often drift in canoes or open kayaks for fishing excursions. A long weekend of canoe camping on a river…
Read MoreRemembering the Whooshies of ’79
Appalachia’s first industrial scale windmill attracted praise, condemnation and cranks Story by Bill Kovarik They said that Boone, NC’s wind turbine didn’t work, that it was too loud, and that, like some kind of gigantic drunk, it attracted wierdos. Well, two out of three. Appalachia’s first wind power project, built in 1979, did work –…
Read MoreGood Things Come in Small Packages
Story by Sarah Vig Though the image of large industrial-scale wind turbines has become common, seen on PowerShift T-shirts and sprouting out of cornfields in Iowa and mountains in Tennessee alike, not every wind turbine towers on the skyline. Wind turbines are made in a number of smaller sizes, more suitable for residential application and…
Read MoreFlooding Takes Its Toll In West Virginia
Story by Penny Loeb Tina England knows why flood waters rose seven feet on the road up Big Huff Creek: recent logging and new roads to gas wells at the top of the mountain. “Coming off a big mountain like this, there’s nothing to hold it (the dirt from the roads) back,” England said. “All…
Read MoreMountaintop Removal Activist Receives Goldman Environmental Prize
Maria Gunnoe’s family connections to her land in Boone County, W. Va, stretch back to Cherokee ancestors who hid from forced removal by the government in the 1830s. Her Cherokee grandfather purchased land there in the 1950s; she herself was born and raised there, learning how to hunt, fish and gather plants in the surrounding…
Read MoreCoal Sludge Protests Rock West Virginia
Two women in hazmat suits and respirators were arrested in May after floated a 60 foot banner in the Brushy Fork impoundment “lake” which contains 8 billion gallons of coal sludge. The banner read: “No More Toxic Sludge.” Ironically, the two were charged with trespassing and littering the 8 billion gallon sludge reservoir. Other mountaintop…
Read MoreSome Permits Suspended But Mountaintop Removal Fight Goes On
The ongoing controversy over mountaintop removal mining see-sawed this spring, as the Obama administration stopped seven high-impact mining permits but then proceeded forward with 42 others. Perhaps 150 more are waiting in the wings, according to an EPA spokesman. One of the projects halted was an expanded mountaintop removal mining operation at the Ison Rock…
Read MoreEPA Assumes Oversight of TVA Coal Fly Ash Disaster
Story by Chris Martin On Monday, May 11, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it would oversee the cleanup of coal fly ash in Roane County, Tenn., after last December’s dam failure at the Kingston Fossil Plant flooded the Emory River with 1.1 billion gallons of wet ash. The EPA opened a month-long period…
Read MoreHundreds Protest Duke’s Cliffside Power Plant Expansion
Story by Sarah Vig Thoreau wrote near the end of his life, “if I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behavior.” At 76, Bruce King, a retiree and military veteran – like Thoreau – was beginning to regret his good behavior. It was the first formal protest of his life, but…
Read MoreHead to the Roof with Project EMMA
Growing on a roof in downtown Asheville, N.C. are beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, salad mix, radishes, lavender, rosemary, lemon balm, basil and other plants. The result of a partnership between the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project and the Council on Aging of Buncombe County, Project EMMA (for Eat better, Move More, Age well) is located on top…
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