2008 – Issue 1 (January)
Hiking in the Highlands: The Virginia Creeper Trail
You can hike it. You can bike it. You can take it by horseback or on cross-country skis. Zipping across most of eastern Washington County, the Virginia Creeper Trail is a multi-use recreational trail linking downtown Abingdon to the North Carolina border near Grayson County’s Whitetop community. The 34-mile-long trail is the former site of…
Read MoreWise power plant foes turn out in Richmond
Hundreds of opponents of Dominion Power Company’s proposed $1.8 billion coal-burning power plant traveled to Richmond in early January to voice their opposition at a hearing of the State Corporation Commission. The commission will decide on the need for the 585 megawatt plant and whether the type of technology the utility has chosen is appropriate.…
Read MoreBig Trouble for Coal Plants
Big coal is in big trouble. You can see it in the statistics compiled by the Sierra Club: Nationwide, courts or state governments have forced the cancellation or delay of 59 out of over 160 proposed new coal fired power plants, according to a Sierra Club database. In 2006, almost 50 new power plants were…
Read MoreFrank Taylor: “I Think People are Still Willing”
I think People are still Willing Frank Taylor, Dungannon, VA Dominion Power says they need to build a plant in SW VA to sell to the inhabitants of 140,000 unbuilt homes in Northern Virginia. There are 140,000 real homes in Southwest Virginia that would emerge under the cloud of pollution from that plant. When the…
Read MoreNew Media Strikes a Deep Chord
/images/AppalachianVoice/Jan_2008/electric_earth_circ.gif Teri Blanton typed her five digit zip code into the web site. Then it hit her. “I was shocked,” she said. The page showed that her own electricity was coming from the very mountaintop removal site that she had fighting for years. As an environmental leader in Berea, Kentucky, Blanton was among the first…
Read MoreIllustrating Unimaginable Hardship
Illustrating Unimaginable Hardship by Matt Wasson According to Dr. Matt Wasson, the conservation director of Appalachian Voices, “New media is du rigueur for building a national movement and a national movement is absolutely what’s required to stop mountaintop removal coal mining – it’s a national issue. Taking on a national issue was difficult to impossible…
Read More“Strange as this weather has been” – a book review
/images/AppalachianVoice/Jan_2008/strange_circle.gif Ann Pancake, Strange as This Weather Has Been (Shoemaker and Hoard) Review by Bill Kovarik Some novels are so good you can’t put them down, but Strange as This Weather Has Been is not one of those. It’s the better sort of book, the kind you can’t keep reading, the kind that you have…
Read MoreCitizens ask courts to investigate fly ash project for New River
PEARISBURG, VA – An unusual lawsuit by a citizens group asks for a grand jury investigation into a controversial coal waste project on the banks of the New River. The Concerned Citizens of Giles County filed the lawsuit on January 8, hoping to stop the project, which would accept coal fly ash, slag and other…
Read MoreProtests Raise Awareness of Destruction
The recent protest of Charlotte-based Bank of America’s practice of financing companies who strip mine coal in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia raised concerns that should be of interest to all North Carolinians. The Rainforest Action Network hung a huge banner off a crane in front of the Bank of America building that dominates the…
Read MoreEnvironmental Education in Giles County
It’s often been said that a good example is at the heart of a good education. That being true, imagine what students on the New River in southwestern Virginia are learning about morality, science, economics and law, thanks to American Electric Power Co and the Giles county government. By recklessly building a dump for toxic…
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