Generations of Maria Gunnoe’s family enjoyed the view of the mountains from the front porch of the house where she lives today. In 2006, she was forced to watch the obliteration of the view from her front porch as a mountaintop removal operation leveled those very mountains.

Maria’s family home place was once a lush green paradise of fruit trees, vegetable gardens and a mountain stream. The forests were full of wildlife, medicinal plants, and wild berries. In recent years, mountaintop removal mines have closed in on her property. The mining has destroyed the land that sustained her family for generations, the land that her grandfather purchased in 1951 on a salary of $18 per week from mining coal. Now this treasure has been passed down to her children as a pile of rubble, poisoned streams and wells, and air that is thick with blasting fumes and dust. She says, “My children will never know the beauty, culture or heritage that the generations before them intended on passing on to them.”

Without the forests to absorb rainfall, flooding has increased dramatically since the mining began. In 3 years, Maria’s land was flooded 7 times, wiping out her bridge so that she no longer has road access to her home. One of the floods dragged the family dog out of his collar and swept him away while the family stood nearby helpless to save him from the raging waters.

Maria says, “Our lives used to be a dream come true. Every child in the neighborhood used to come here and play. Now my children have to go somewhere else and play. It’s hard to believe that there isn’t a safe place for them to play here now. Our lives have changed in every way anyone could possibly imagine.

“My children sit up at night during heavy rain events. When they do sleep, they sleep fully clothed, just in case they have to escape the water in a hurry. No child - or adult, for that matter - should have to endure this constant hell.

“People ask me why we don’t move. In order to move, you have to be able to afford to move. Our place is worthless thanks to all the land surrounding us being annihilated. Anyone would be crazy to buy real estate in a wasteland.

“I have looked around for prospective places to live and I am not finding any place that isn’t affected by some aspect of coal. Coal is something you can’t run from; it’s a global problem. I have a long family history here and I shouldn’t have to leave. Our human rights are being violated every day for energy, and we don’t have to do it this way. We owe our children a renewable energy future.”

Maria is working to protect her home and her neighbors as a mountain community organizer with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. Maria tells her story in the video on www.iLoveMountains.org.

Click here to watch a video about flooding in Wharton, WV and learn more about the communities that live nearby.

Summary contributed by Mary Anne Hitt courtesy of Appalachian Voices. Photo by Vivian Stockman and provided courtesy of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Southwings.