Island Creek, KY
True Cost of Coal Mining
Courtesy of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
Coal companies have been mining in the community of Island Creek in Pike County Kentucky since the 1960’s. Back then there were about fifty families that lived in Island Creek. But once the strip mining started in the 1980 families started to move out. As recently as 2004 there were still about twenty families living in Island Creek, that was until Clintwood Elkhorn, a subsidiary of Tampa Electric Coal Company (TECO) moved in, now there are only five families left in this rural isolated community.
The few families that remain have organized with Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC) to protect their property and the mountains and streams of their community from the mountaintop removal and contour strip mining going on all around them. Right now they are pinched between Fishtrap Lake, a reservoir created by the Army Corps of Engineers, and TECO’s mining operation.
This once thriving rural community is now inundated with dust and mud from the mining operation, flash floods that washout the roads, blasting that shakes their houses, massive trucks and heavy equipment on their once tree lined dirt road, and now the well water they rely on has been contaminated. The creeks that used to flow all year long are now dry after being buried by the valley fills from the mining operation.
Faced with the challenges of an outlaw coal company as a neighbor the residents of Island Creek have been reaching out to other communities impacted by mountaintop removal strip mining as well as people living down river towards Lexington and Louisville. The residents of Island Creek along with other KFTC members have been raising the question what is the true coast of coal mining on rural communities across Appalachia? After a hundred years of coal mining are coal producing states like Kentucky really better off? If we continue to allow the sacrifice of communities such as Island Creek what are the implications for the rest of the planet?
