The Appalachian Voice

images/voice_uploads/wiley.gif Ed Wiley is one determined man. On August 2nd, he embarked on a 455 mile walk from Charleston, WV to Washington D.C. to dramatize concerns about the safety of a school located next to a major coal mine. The school, Marsh Fork Elementary, is about 400 yards from a 2.8 billion gallon coal slurry…

This month the Charlotte metro area saw its first Code Red ozone alert of the year. On Code Red days, the simple act of breathing outside puts even healthy adults at risk of damaging their lungs. This red alert presents an opportunity to reflect on how our quality of life depends on decisions made by…

We can dismantle wind turbines when better technology comes along, but we can never put back the tops of our mountains, or uncover the streams that have been covered, or unpoison our babies. As far as I know, wind turbines don’t poison unborn children with mercury the way coal does. The air that comes out…

In the 1930s, FDR proposed a New Deal, part of which was the creation of a new South, which harnessed the power of its rivers to usher an era of prosperity along the lines of a power grid expanding at breakneck speed. Yet, in the following world war, it was Appalachia’s coal, not its water,…