Tuesday, January 16th, 2007

Anna Santo, AV Staff

“Praise the Lord, you mountains and all hills.” This Prayer on the Mountain resounded over the devastated community of McRoberts, Kentucky in December 2002. Earlier in the year, three “hundred-year floods” happened within 10 days, leaving the nearby landscape and community ravaged. The “clean, bustling, orderly town that promoted racial equality and neighborliness” that was once McRoberts literally washed away.

In 1998, TECO, Tampa Energy Company began blasting away the mountain ridges above McRoberts, clearcutting all of the vegetation at Chopping Block Hollow, and replacing it with valley fills. Deforestation and constant blasting from mountaintop removal operations sent the community into a state of severe economic decline. Foundations of homes that had been stable for decades were cracked, homes and gardens were washed away in flash floods, and families were displaced. Insisting that it was an “act of God,” TECO and government inspectors have taken no responsibility for the suffering of the people of McRoberts.

Prayer on the Mountain

On the 10th of December 2002, representatives of the faith community and environmentalists across Appalachia gathered atop a mining site in Letcher County to voice despair over the loss of their mountain and community. The mountaintop removal protest site overlooked the wreckage of recently flooded McRoberts, Kentucky.

Reverend John Rausch, one of the event’s leaders and a member of the Catholic Diocese of Lexington, labeled mountaintop removal as, “an abuse of God’s Creation.” The event was aimed at educating the religious community that protecting God’s creation by stopping mountaintop removal is a spiritual duty of the faith community.

Six months following the first “Prayer on the Mountain,” a second prayer event was initiated by Caring for Creation. Twenty-five participants stopped to pray and plant a flower at dozens of “stations” throughout McRoberts and nearby Fleming-Neon. Each “station” was a home, building, or other landmark affected by the flooding resulting from mountaintop removal.

In the Spring 2004 issue of the Glenmary Challenge, Father Rausch wrote,

“Through beauty God regenerates the human spirit. The ministry of the Church, symbolized by planting begonias, marigolds and other flowers, responded to the ugliness of greed and indifference with the beauty of creation.”

Demographics of McRoberts, KY

According to Kentucky Census Data, in 2002 McRoberts, Kentucky, population 921 had the following demographic statistics:

For population 25 years and over in McRoberts, the following percentages of the population had the following degrees:
High school or higher: 58.2%
Bachelor’s degree or higher: 2.8%
Graduate or professional degree: 1.8%

The unemployment rate was 4.7%.
The median household income was $18,333 in 2000.
The median house value was $32,800 in 2000.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 9:14 pm and is filed under McRoberts, KY. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.