Posts Tagged ‘Tennessee’
We Can End Mountaintop Removal in Tennessee
By Dr. Minnie Vance Chattanooga, Tenn. In Tennessee, we love our mountains. These peaks and valleys inform our southern heritage, enhance our connection to family and represent the best of what we call state and country. Our mountains are home. Nevertheless, we too are facing down the barrel of continued mountaintop removal mining. Unfortunately, in…
Read MoreThe Sewanee Coal Seam: The Dirt on East Tennessee’s Toxic Coal
By Jenni Frankenberg Veal One of the most toxic coal seams east of the Mississippi River has cast a dark shadow over the land and people living in its boundaries. Landon Medley, a resident and former county commissioner of Van Buren County, Tenn., has witnessed the impacts of mining in the Sewanee coal seam firsthand.…
Read MoreNuclear Confusion
The Complicated History of the Atom in Appalachia By Paige Campbell Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc. sits on 66 acres between the Nolichucky River and the south end of Erwin, Tenn. This part of Erwin is the very picture of a small, blue-collar town. Within a quarter-mile of the fence surrounding the industrial site, there’s a…
Read MoreTennessee Office Making Ground with State Legislature, TVA
In Tennessee, our staff is currently working with the state legislature to pass the Scenic Vistas Protection Act, a bill that would ban high elevation surface mining techniques such as mountaintop removal in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. In collaboration with partners across the state, we are building relationships with key members of the House…
Read MoreSELC Releases Top Ten Endangered Places List, Shows Threats in Southeast
The Southern Environmental Law Center recently released its fourth-annual Top 10 Endangered Places list for 2012, highlighting the ecologically and culturally rich areas throughout the Southeast that are threatened by development, water issues and the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal and hydraulic fracturing. Southeastern states bordering Appalachia, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, are each featured…
Read MoreSeeds of Change Initiative to Improve Access to Local Food
The Boone, N.C.-based non-profit group Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture received a $1.1 million grant from Heifer USA to strengthen the local food system in what is known as the High Country region of North Carolina. The Seeds of Change Initiative is a multi-year program that will build upon the emerging local food movement to…
Read MoreAnother Nordic Revolution
By Kristian Jackson It’s 5 a.m. and outside the truck, headlights reveal driving snow squalls and drifts as high as the pickup’s hood. Our crawl up Roaring Creek Road near the Toe River of North Carolina comes to a sudden halt in a wall of whiteness. We abandon our attempt to dig out the beast…
Read MoreGhostly Legends Rooted in History
By Molly Moore As fall creeps into Appalachia, a smoky fog drifts through the hollows and wraps trees and church steeples in a ghostly haze. At this time of year, it’s wise to pay attention to the human stories buried in the region’s historical towns and landmarks. Elizabethton, Tenn., one of the earliest permanent settlements…
Read MoreAcross Appalachia
Rays of Solar Progress Peeking Out in Appalachia By Jeff Deal While Appalachia has not yet realized the progress made in solar electricity generation in the United States’ West Coast or Northeast regions, solar energy development within our region is slowly moving forward. The town of Newland, N.C., will host a 900kW solar electric facility…
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