The Appalachian Voice
Coal River featured in two upcoming cinema releases
The community of Coal River, West Virginia, which has been the center of a battle between residents wanting to save Coal River Mountain and a coal company planning to destroy it, is now at the center of two upcoming films. On Coal River “On Coal River,” directed by Francine Cavanaugh and Adams Wood, is a…
Read MoreCoal Country
Film about Mountaintop Removal Mining to be Screened July 11 in West Virginia Story by Linda Coutant Whenever you turn on your lights or air conditioning, filmmaker Mari-Lynn Evans wants you to consider who pays the price for that electricity. “The people of Appalachia will be hard to forget after people see their faces and…
Read MoreSomething’s Rising
Appalachians Against Mountaintop Removal Editor’s Note: In this issue, we would like to introduce what we hope will become a regular feature in this publication, the Appalachian Voice Book Club. Every issue, we will select a book, provide you with a short review and questions to guide your reading and discussion, and point you to…
Read MoreThe winding road to Tazewell
Story by Bill Kovarik The two-lane road to Tazewell, Va. fades to gray like a pair of blue jeans in an old photo. It winds past small but prosperous homes, along pastures rimmed with split rail fences, and through some of the most beautiful mountains in Appalachia. Once it simply connected this quiet town to…
Read MoreScientists Search for Conservation Strategies
Story by Bill Kovarik Increasing numbers of windmills will pose threats to bats and migratory birds, scientists have warned in recent years, unless conservation strategies are put into place. Many states, including Virginia, are beginning to include stringent monitoring and mitigation plans in the wind energy permitting process, and a set of federal guidelines from…
Read MorePaddling 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…
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