The Appalachian Voice
Decision 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 MoreLetters
Dear Appalachian Voice, I like to get your paper even if our government will not stop [mountaintop removal mining]. I received my first copy through a friend. I was born and raised in SW Virginia in the beautiful mountains. Now it’s terribly dirty. The mountains in Pardu, VA, north of Appalachia are nothing but one…
Read MoreA Tennessee Fairy Tale
In the Elk Valley region of East Tennessee, coal companies are telling a tale of a new type of mountaintop strip-mining that they say will not destroy homes, rivers, mountains and economies (see story on p.12). This new mining technique is called cross-ridge mining and it differs only slightly from the highly controversial mountaintop removal…
Read MoreCarolina Business Owners Meet with Senator Dole’s Staff to Promote Clean Air
On October 27, two North Carolina business owners, Renea Reed, owner of Snow Toys Ski and Snowboard Shop in Banner Elk, and Amy Vermillion, owner of the Dripolator Coffeehouse in Black Mountain, spoke to Senator Dole’s staff on behalf of the 350 North Carolina members of the Appalachian Voices Business League. They were asking the…
Read MoreUrban Wilderness: Birding in a National Airport’s Shadow
images/voice_uploads/ContentsHeron.gif You may not think of the booming Washington, D.C. metro area, with its population of 5 million, as part of the Appalachian wilderness experience. Think again. If business or political activity takes you to the capital, be sure to seek out one of the most satisfying wildlife experiences possible: observing hundreds of bird species,…
Read MoreIs Your Dog a Trail Dog?
As the trail finally leveled off at the valley bottom, Kane trotted further in front of me, his swaying gait interrupted by ever more frequent investigations of sounds and smells. Finally, with his inner-wolf awakened – and unaware of the incongruity of being wolfish while wearing a bright red doggy pack – Kane dove into…
Read MoreHighway 81 Revisited
images/voice_uploads/ContentsHighway.gif The American Automobile Association has called it one of the nation’s most scenic stretches of interstate. As it winds through the rolling farmland of the Shenandoah Valley and around the mountain ridges of southwest Virginia, Interstate 81 allows tourists in the Old Dominion a rare treat — the opportunity to enjoy breathtaking scenery at…
Read MoreFestivals Provide Fun and Funds in the High Country
Late in the summer of 1996, the checkered flag fell frantically at the North Wilkesboro Speedway as 25-year-old Jeff Gordon finished first in the NASCAR Tyson Holly Farms 400. A desperate Dale Earnhardt then zoomed by — a scant 1.73 seconds behind Gordon — to come in second. The victory was the tenth of the…
Read MoreMountaintop Removal by any Other Name
Ask any Tennessean to sing the chorus of “Rocky Top,” an official state song and the fight song of the University of Tennessee, and you’re sure to hear a rousing refrain of “Rocky Top, you’ll always be home sweet home to me.” But in some parts of east Tennessee, residents and visitors who wish that…
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