Mud, WV, Mountains near Cameo, WV
Rape of the Mountains
Thursday, August 10th, 2006
by Anita Miller, OVEC member
They are beginning to rape another hill side. The cutters have come in and clear cut everything that stands….
This is very distressing……….I grew up in those hills, climbed those trees that now lay on the ground ready to be burned up. It was just a few years ago that my Dad and I went ginsenging up those hills. When I was just a kid PawPaw Caudill and I would walk up on the old strip mine road and look for chunks of coal. He was blind so I would find the coal and he could feel it and tell if it was good or not. We then would roll the chunks down the hill to be picked up later.
Every October my family gets together for a camping trip. This has been going on since I was born. For years we camped in the same spot, then the mines moved in and took over. Then we moved to Berry’s Branch, the mines have taken that area. Then, three years ago we moved up behind the home place at Mud River, the mines have now cut all the trees above the camp site and plan on putting in a sludge pond. My grandchildren love to camp, but this tradition of camping may end soon, the mines are taking all the mountains.
Strip mining is a horrible thing. When we drive in that area my granddaugher can’t even look at the destruction. At eleven years old she can understand how much we need the mountains. She asked me one day “MawMaw, don’t they know we need the trees”. I hate the fact she won’t experience the same enjoyment out of the mountains that I did.
September 6th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
We absolutely need the trees.
I live in Ohio, and I see your beauty disappearing. If it were up to me I would end it today, but it’s not. And, as long as money is made no one will stop it, no one. You just have to chalk it up to big-ugly-money and greedy families who want everything forever. I have grave news for them, the Lord will see their end does arrive — exactly when I don’t know.
I am not a tree-hugger, nor a conservationist, but it’s time to move into a new era without mining… with solar power and nuclear, there is no need for it.
May God continue to bless this country, what’s left of it.
And whatever you do, do not vote in a marxist like Obama, or there will be no country to call the USA.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I agree that we absolutley need the trees. I am really surprised that no government official has stood up against this strip mining. Perhaps there should be a ground swell movement against this mining. I do not believe that there is nothing we can do. We need to lobby politicians, and I think Obama would not be averse to the idea of shutting down coal mines in favor of solar and wind energy. He has promised to create 5,000,000 jobs in the field of new energy. Now that he is going to be our next president, it would be opportune to lobby for this cause.