2004 – Issue 1 (February)
Elkins, West Virginia
Make two lists: one of the top outdoor recreation destinations in Appalachia and a second of the natural wonders surrounding the town of Elkins, West Virginia, and you’ll notice the two lists have a lot in common. Within an short drive of Elkins, you’ll find many of the most treasured wild places in Appalachia, places…
Read MoreAppalachian Innovation at Work
images/voice_uploads/p2basket.gif Sometimes, creating industry means crafting a work of art. In 1993, community leaders in Asheville, North Carolina were planning a revitalization of the Asheville area. Thinking outside of traditional economic protocols, they realized their community’s strength lay not in its ability to recruit new business, but in fostering the resources it already had, the…
Read MoreRuling Will Allow Destruction of Zeb Mountain to Continue
In the last issue of the Appalachian Voice, we brought you a story about the struggle of people in the Elk Valley region of eastern Tennessee to protect their streams, mountains and communities from a new type of mountaintop removal mining that is on the rise in Tennessee. Unfortunately, a lawsuit filed in Tennessee by…
Read MoreAnother Big Roll-Back in Pollution Rules
Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed to weaken rules regulating both deadly fine particulate matter and toxic mercury air pollution. Knowing that these rules are strongly opposed by the nation’s public health and environmental advocates, the Bush Administration is attempting to legitimize its proposals by conducting three public hearings on February 25th and 26th…
Read MoreBloodroot
One of the first (and fleeting) wildflowers of spring is Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). In the southern Appalachians, Bloodroot typically blooms from mid-March through April, and is usually found in the loamy soils of deciduous coves and well-drained bottomlands. Desperate to outrun the canopy of spring leaves, it often competes with spring snows and heavy frosts,…
Read MoreDecision Due this Spring on Blue Ridge Mill Permit
CANTON, NC—Responding to requests from concerned citizens, public health advocates and environmental groups, including Appalachian Voices, North Carolina’s Division of Air Quality (DAQ), held a hearing on January 8 regarding Blue Ridge Paper Products’ pending Title V air pollution permit for their mill in Canton. According to DAQ, this employee-owned facility has been operating under…
Read MoreInvesting in Our Landscape and our Future
One hundred years after Katherine Lee Bates first put her poem “America the Beautiful” to music, the beauty of our nation’s landscape remains a source of artistic inspiration and national pride. We can be thankful that visionary leaders such as Teddy Roosevelt had the wisdom to set aside public lands to preserve a natural legacy,…
Read MoreRamp Festivals a Sure Sign of Appalachian Spring
images/voice_uploads/ramp_contents.gif “Well, a ramp is a little wild onion that grows on top the mountains ‘round here. A lot of people, they eat them raw. We’d cut them up, put them in eggs, put fatback in there and fry them up real good. A lot of people pickles them things. I guess I’ve eat a…
Read MoreThe Real Cold Mountain Beckons Near Asheville
images/voice_uploads/p2coldmountain.gif By Nan Chase At the beginning of December last year, a few weeks before the public release of the film Cold Mountain, I was invited to a Miramax-sponsored press screening in Asheville, N.C. I expected glamor, glitz, klieg lights maybe. But this odd event took place at 10 o’clock one icy morning in a…
Read MoreWestern Ocean Climate in the Eastern Mountains?
A major characteristic of southern Appalachian weather is the large amount of precipitation we receive. Certain locations record the second highest annual rainfall in North America (after the Pacific Northwest), and even fit the definition of a temperate rainforest. Rain is created as a result of the cooling of an air mass. For illustration, consider…
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