Her Side of the Mountain

While stopping mountaintop-removal coal mining does not require transitioning away from the use of coal, a sensible plan for America's energy security and stability does. Not only is coal the biggest contributor to global-warming pollution, but the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts America will become a net importer of coal in the next five to 10 years. My own state of Virginia is already importing a significant proportion of our coal from Indonesia and Venezuela.

They're putting a lot more faith in the promises of the coal industry than anyone from Appalachia ever would. Most of the so-called "clean coal" technologies being promoted are much more expensive than current coal-burning plants, have not been tested on a large scale, and will not be viable for decades into the future. Our fear is that this is a classic bait-and-switch -- the industry will make promises about implementing these technologies in the future, but will in fact build another generation of traditional coal-fired power plants, creating an even bigger global-warming problem.

In principle, the coal companies are only supposed to be removing mountaintops if they have a plan to develop the site for a commercial use. In reality, less than 1 percent of the sites have had any sort of development on them. The mining companies often go bankrupt before the reclamation begins, and the bond they post for reclamation is usually inadequate. Most former mountaintop-removal sites look like anemic golf courses and will never again support the diverse hardwood forests that once covered the mountains.

Coal liquefaction is one of the biggest looming threats to both the mountains and the climate. For those who haven't heard of it, the idea is to turn coal into a liquid that can be used for transportation fuel in jets and cars. Clearly, the increased demand for coal would be catastrophic for Appalachia and other coal-producing regions of the country. Liquefying coal also creates twice as much global-warming pollution as gasoline -- a hybrid car run on liquid coal would pollute more than a gasoline Hummer!

In a nutshell, it's the people and the mountains I love that sustain me. I'm surrounded every day by wonderful, supportive, funny people who make my life a real joy -- my husband, family, friends, and colleagues at Appalachian Voices and beyond. Without them, I might have thrown in the towel a long time ago.

Organize on your campus to demand that your university stop purchasing electricity generated by mountaintop-removal coal. At my alma mater, the University of Tennessee, the faculty Senate, grad student Senate, and Student Government Association have all recently passed resolutions urging the administration to adopt a policy of not buying surface-mined coal.

The issue of compromise is always the $64,000 question in any environmental fight. When the national surface-mining law was passed in 1977, a compromise was made to allow mountaintop removal, a loophole big enough to drive a few million coal trucks through. The modern-day movement to end mountaintop removal learned a very important lesson from that experience, and we are keeping those lessons in mind as we work to pass new federal legislation to curtail mountaintop removal, the Clean Water Protection Act.

Wow, you're from Sevier County too? For the rest of our readers, this doesn't happen every day. The image of a dragline taking away Mount LeConte -- the most famous peak in the Smokies -- resonates a great deal with what drives me. The mountains I can see from my parents' front porch are the closest to my heart, and when I think of them being blown up and hauled away, it is almost more than I can stand.

When I was a student at the University of Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Authority was attempting to start up the last nuclear power plant to go online in the nation, the Watts Bar facility in east Tennessee. It was notorious for safety problems, whistleblower complaints, and massive cost overruns that had contributed heavily to TVA's $25 billion debt.

I wrote my master's thesis about five women who played a prominent role in the history of the wilderness movement, and one of the things I learned was that it's a challenge to generalize the experience of women who do environmental work. With that said, I do think that most women I know tend to prefer a collaborative work style, instead of the lone-wolf approach, which is beneficial in advancing efforts that include many partners. I also think many women find it natural to maintain extensive webs of relationships, which serves me well in keeping up with the dozens of people that make our work possible, including our staff and board, volunteers, the staff of partner organizations, funders, the general public, and so on.

How sweet of you -- thank you! The song "The Most Beautiful Place in the World" was included on a benefit CD called Moving Mountains. I encourage Grist readers to purchase a copy, as all the proceeds benefit communities affected by mountaintop removal. You can play the song from the box above, or download it here.