McRoberts, KY
Lucious Thompson
Tuesday, January 16th, 2007
Courtesy of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
Letcher County, McRoberts, KY
The cost of coal mining is expensive. A ton is about 30 something dollars, but the cost of coal in the expense that I’ve had, it’s not worth what these strip jobs are doing to people. It’s destroying people.
The good things disappearing are the trees, the wildlife. The streams of water have stopped running. And that’s some of the good parts of life.
It’s nerve-wracking, you can’t sleep at night like you used to. You can’t enjoy yourself. The coal trucks will run you off the road- they run 24 hours a day. The noise will kill you, the dust will kill you. You can’t keep your house clean because of the dust. They’ll come right down to your back door if you don’t stop them. They will really hurt you.
Years ago there was wall-to-wall people. Everyone had a job. The way it’s going now, no one’s ever going to have a job in this area. I figure in 10 years this will be a ghost town. Tumbleweeds will be going down the road. This place will never be like it used to be.
