Issue 1: January 2008

Hiking in the Highlands: The Virginia Creeper Trail

You can hike it. You can bike it. You can take it by horseback or on cross-country skis. Zipping across most of eastern Washington County, the Virginia Creeper Trail is a multi-use recreational trail linking downtown Abingdon to the North…

Wise power plant foes turn out in Richmond

Hundreds of opponents of Dominion Power Company’s proposed $1.8 billion coal-burning power plant traveled to Richmond in early January to voice their opposition at a hearing of the State Corporation Commission. The commission will decide on the need for the…

Environmental Education in Giles County

It’s often been said that a good example is at the heart of a good education. That being true, imagine what students on the New River in southwestern Virginia are learning about morality, science, economics and law, thanks to American…

New Media Strikes a Deep Chord

/images/AppalachianVoice/Jan_2008/electric_earth_circ.gif Teri Blanton typed her five digit zip code into the web site. Then it hit her. “I was shocked,” she said. The page showed that her own electricity was coming from the very mountaintop removal site that she had…

When the Buffalo Roamed

A curious characteristic of Appalachian geography is the number of features- creeks, knobs, hollows, etc. – with “buffalo” in their name. This beast from the western plains seems as out-of-place in the forests of Appalachia as a saguaro cactus on…

Citizens ask courts to investigate fly ash project for New River

PEARISBURG, VA – An unusual lawsuit by a citizens group asks for a grand jury investigation into a controversial coal waste project on the banks of the New River. The Concerned Citizens of Giles County filed the lawsuit on January…

Big Trouble for Coal Plants

Big coal is in big trouble. You can see it in the statistics compiled by the Sierra Club: Nationwide, courts or state governments have forced the cancellation or delay of 59 out of over 160 proposed new coal fired power…

John McCain to Appalachian Voices: “Stop the Removal of Mountains”

/images/AppalachianVoice/Jan_2008/obama_circ.gif Southern Appalachia has never been closer to New Hampshire than it was at this year’s New Hampshire primaries. As thousands of New Hampshire voters gathered in the chilly, slushy streets of Manchester and Concord to support their favorite candidates,…

Illustrating Unimaginable Hardship

Illustrating Unimaginable Hardship by Matt Wasson According to Dr. Matt Wasson, the conservation director of Appalachian Voices, “New media is du rigueur for building a national movement and a national movement is absolutely what’s required to stop mountaintop removal coal…

Review: Strange as This Weather Has Been

/images/AppalachianVoice/Jan_2008/strange_circle.gif Strange as This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake Shoemaker and Hoard Some novels are so good you can’t put them down, but Ann Pancake’s book is not one of those. Strange as This Weather Has Been is the…

Saving Place: Art in Nature

Theresa L. Burriss is an assistant professor at Radford University. She is currently working on a book entitled Women of Change, Women of Courage: Appalachian Activists, to be published by the University of Tennessee Press. Natural beauty abounds in Appalachia,…

Protests Raise Awareness of Destruction

The recent protest of Charlotte-based Bank of America’s practice of financing companies who strip mine coal in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia raised concerns that should be of interest to all North Carolinians. The Rainforest Action Network hung a huge…

Frank Taylor: "I Think People are Still Willing"

I think People are still Willing Frank Taylor, Dungannon, VA Dominion Power says they need to build a plant in SW VA to sell to the inhabitants of 140,000 unbuilt homes in Northern Virginia. There are 140,000 real homes in…

Review: A Hard Journey: The Life of Don West

James J. Lorence, A Hard Journey: The Life of Don West (University of Illinois Press) Review by Kirk R. MacGregor appvoices.org/books In this comprehensive and insightful biography of radical Appalachian poet, preacher, and social activist Don West (1906-92), James J.…

"Strange as this weather has been" - a book review

/images/AppalachianVoice/Jan_2008/strange_circle.gif Ann Pancake, Strange as This Weather Has Been (Shoemaker and Hoard) Review by Bill Kovarik Some novels are so good you can’t put them down, but Strange as This Weather Has Been is not one of those. It’s the…