Posts Tagged ‘West Virginia’
Order Will Protect Portion of Historic Blair Mountain Battlefield
By Brian Sewell A section of historic Blair Mountain is off-limits to mountaintop removal coal mining until at least 2018 when the permit comes up for renewal. An order issued by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection prohibits Aracoma Coal, a subsidiary of Alpha Natural Resources, from mining within 1,000 feet of the mountain’s…
Read More“Hollow” Documentary Wins Award
By Kelsey Boyajian Throughout “Hollow,” an interactive online documentary, the lush hills of Appalachia are juxtaposed beside stripped mountaintops. Through the stories of 30 individuals living in rural McDowell County, W.Va., director and producer Elaine McMillion uses a combination of web and film to spotlight the history and aspirations of the county’s 21,000 residents, and…
Read MoreDoubts Follow Elk River Contamination
By Kimber Ray Four months after a Freedom Industries chemical tank contaminated the water of approximately 300,000 West Virginia residents this past January, only 36 percent of those residents were drinking their tap water, according a survey released in May by the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department. The affected private utility, West Virginia American Water Company, is…
Read MoreCommunities Pursue Revitalization Plans
By Carvan Craft Convenient access to local food can be a rare commodity in rural communities. Thanks to the Appalachian Livable Communities grant program, founded in 2012, five Appalachian communities will receive a shared total of $375,000 to help make local food projects a reality. The grant will fund a new agricultural education facility for…
Read MoreA Victory in the Battle to Protect Blair Mountain
An order from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection will put a section of a mountaintop removal permit near historic Blair Mountain off limits to mining until at least 2018, when the permit comes up for renewal. During a site visit in March, Friends of Blair Mountain documented “significant areas of the battlefield” that were destroyed through logging and construction methods.
Toxic Warnings: Recent Spills Underscore Lack of Water Oversight
By Kimber Ray In the early morning hours of Jan. 9, Kim Thompson was getting ready to leave her South Charleston home in Kanawha Co. — the most populated region in the mountains of West Virginia — and head out to her job as field supervisor for a local telecommunications company. As she twisted the…
Read MoreAppalachian States Debate Hemp Legalization
By Nolen Nychay The legal hemp farming debate has come to Appalachia. The much-debated Farm Bill President Obama signed into law in February included a “hemp amendment,” which permitted the regulated cultivation of industrial hemp in states that have legalized hemp farming. Hemp is a cash crop in the cannabis family that, despite lacking most…
Read MoreVolunteering in West Virginia
Big Laurel Learning Center Along the beautiful Tug Fork River near Kermit, W.Va., this rural community center offers environmental service opportunities to educate and assist communities affected by mountaintop removal mining. “The coal mines are right next door and people suffer from this fall-out of the coal society,” says Gretchen Shaffer, Big Laurel’s volunteer program…
Read MoreSupreme Court Rejects Spruce Mine Mountaintop Removal Case
The U.S. Supreme Court says it won’t consider the case of Mingo Logan Coal Co. v. EPA, a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to veto mountaintop removal permits. In this case, the permits in question are for Arch Coal’s Spruce Mine No. 1 — the largest mountaintop removal project ever proposed in West Virginia.
Study Confirms Air Pollution from Mountaintop Removal
For generations, coal-mining communities in Appalachia have raised questions about local health problems, wondering whether or not they may be linked to pollution from nearby coal mines. A recent study conducted by a group of West Virginia University researchers has confirmed that suspicion, reporting that potentially dangerous air pollution levels are more likely in areas surrounding mountaintop removal coal mines than in mine-free communities.