Lost Mountain, KY
Profits from coal taken from communities
I am a college student here at Hazard Community College and am currently pursuing a degree in medicine. I am choosing to stay anonymous in this narrative because I have many relatives who work in coal, and I wish to not offend and cause myself family problems. This, I believe, illustrates the extent of the impact of the coal industry in Southeast Kentucky. The companies have the area so brainwashed that these poor individuals actually believe that we depend on coal and if it wasn’t for these knights in bloodied we would have nothing. This is my first qualm with these corrupt businesses. We and our land are nothing more than resources to exploit for the profit of businessmen who know nothing of the area and the people they wreck.
I recently was given the privilege to fly with Southwings, an environmental piloting agency. They took me into the air to show me the devastation being caused to the land, my land, your land, our land. It looked as if I was flying overtop the moon, the gray, barren, and cratered surface was reminiscent of the pictures taken by NASA when America made it’s first shot for the moon. This causes me to remember my great grandmother who swore to her grave that men never landed on the moon. She actually believed wholeheartedly that NASA was actually filming men in space suits out on some strip job. For some reason this little memory resonates and exemplifies the extent of mountaintop removal in Appalachia.
I also find it amazing that some of the world’s greatest wealth is extracted from these mountains and yet we are some of the poorest, least educated, and most abused people on the planet. I honestly believe the coal companies orchestrate a good deal of this so we don’t believe there is anything better and stay satisfied with the status quo. If you notice, a good majority of the educated leave this area in search of greener pastures instead of flat mountains (kind of an oxymoron, “flat mountain�) and abusive, oppressive coal companies. If this area is to ever improve, we need a sustainable economy separate from coal, more educated jobs to prevent the brain drain plaguing the area, and stricter laws to protect our land and more importantly, our people.
January 29th, 2007 at 1:32 am
I’ve been reading some of the stories on here about Lost Mountain. I’m not from Perry County, but am from Knott County, it’s next door neighboor. I understand the destruction that these mines cause all to well. It’s not just a physical destruction of the mountain, but a mental destruction of it’s people.
I do hope that someday we find an alternative to this form of mining coal. As it is now though, I feel like fighting them is like fighting a very uphill battle. They strip the coal and then leave the big open spaces claiming that they will be great to use for industrial and commercial development. When in turn all we get are mostly pasture lands. There are places were the land is utilized for more than just grass land, but has proven to be have proven to be just as useful. There are places were industrial parks have been built on these lands, with factories being built because of huge tax breaks offered by the local governments. The factories do good for a couple years, but eventually they all shut down, leaving people jobless with nowhere to go once again. Then the commercial lands are all small strip malls, with the ever present Super Wal-Mart which is harmful to the local economies as the mines themselves, with the same big promises for more money and better lives, neither of which ever happen.
I went to college and got a good degree, hoping that it would be able to keep me from having to work on these types of mining jobs. I was actually hoping to not be involved with mining at all. For two years I’ve been helping to survey on a job very near my home, slowly watching them blast away the mountain I have so many childhood memories of. It has had a profound mental effect on me, the mountain was more important to me than I realized, and now it’s gone. As it happens all to often I have been laid off from that job. The sad reality of it is that I know for a fact I will not go back to that type of work, and for me to find another decent job I will have to move away from my family, friends, and the area in which I grew up. All because we have been fooled into believing that these mines were always our only form of income in this area, so we don’t even try to do anything else.
June 19th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
My family is also from near Hazard, Jeremiah, KY. I am so sorry about the pain you endure all because of these coal industries. It is ridiculous and needs to be stopped soon. You have more support behind you than you think you do. Good luck.