By Daniel Alexander Hawkins, Special to The Voice It is 10:06 p.m. on a Sunday night and I begin getting dressed in my high-visibility work uniforms, the trademark navy shirt and pants with orange stripes identifying the Appalachian coal miners…
Blog Archives
Notice!! This is data about which features this issue contains. Delete this description to rebuild the list.[“2010-issue-aprilmay”,”voice”,”across-appalachia”,”hiking-highlands”,”naturalistsnotebook-voice”,”inside-av”,”av-bookclub”]
Coal Controversy Rises on the National Agenda
Controversy over the environmental costs of coal – from mountaintop removal to ash spills, from black lung disease to the toll on Appalachian communities – has moved from the Appalachian region to the center of the national agenda. The conflict…
High Stakes Gamble With Carbon Capture Technologies
By Bill Kovarik A high stakes effort to research carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology is advancing with almost $2 billion in research and development grants, the Obama administration announced this February. Four projects in West Virginia, Texas, Illinois…
Voices from the Field:
Citizen Activist Cathie Bird is Building Bridges By Julie Johnson Community and Environmental Advocate Cathie Bird works for Statewide Organizing for Community Empowerment (SOCM), a group dedicated to solving social and environmental issues in Tennessee. Bird is the chair of…
Civil Standoff:
Kennedy and Blankenship Debate Future of Coal By Bill Kovarik A polite but pointed debate showed a wide gulf between environmental and coal industry positions on Appalachia’s environmental woes. The debate was sponsored by the University of Charleston in Charleston,…
Letters to the Editor
Cap and Trade Could Have An Impact On Health Care Costs To the Editor, While many Republicans are predicting an increase in energy costs if we pass the cap and trade legislation, they are missing the big picture. In fact,…
Inside Appalachian Voices
Musicians for the Mountains: Artists Team Up With Appalachian Voices Three Kentucky musicians are teaming up to promote awareness of the impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining, with plans to donate their new album’s proceeds to the cause. Cellist Ben…
TVA’s Environmental Science Reporting Still Sparks Controversy
By Bill Kovarik When the Tennessee Valley Authority released its “Toxics Release Inventory” (TRI) report in December 2009, environmental organizations such as the Environmental Integrity Project expressed concern at the amount of toxins released into the river. According to TVA…
Citizens Group Critical of TVA Information and Sampling Procedures
By Maureen Halsema Almost a year after the coal ash disaster at the TVA plant in Kingston, a citizens advisory group says they are unhappy with TVA’s information and water sampling procedures. “This is a horrible economic and environmental situation…
Backlash: Counties in Alabama, Tennessee Fight Ash Relocation
By Julie Johnson Disposing of the coal ash spilled by TVA in December 2008 may turn out to be as much of an environmental problem as the original disaster. According to the Waterkeeper Alliance, toxic surface water with levels of…
