I was born and raised in Muhlenberg County. Yes, that place from the John Prine song. My mother worked at Paradise. Not Paradise the town -- what remained of that was a single row of forlorn, crumbling shops and the yawning foundations of houses that had turned into concrete-lined pools. No, she worked at TVA's Paradise Steam Plant. That's what became of the town of Paradise after the coal companies "hauled it away." My father was born right down the road from there, in another little town. That one's gone too.
Once upon a time, Muhlenberg County was known for its fine strawberries and the region celebrated a Strawberry Festival each summer. Later, it changed to the Coal Festival. The strawberries were gone.
I lived the first eighteen years of my life in Muhlenberg County, and spent another year working there in my twenties. But I don't know what it looked like. That is, I don't know what it really looked like. Before surface mining changed it irrevocably. Mining gave me a childhood landscape that made a good part of the county look more like a kind of ersatz Arizona than western Kentucky. There were crumbling bluffs left behind at the edge of operations, barren hills of spoil cut through by mini-canyons of erosion. Lakes that were brown, rust red, or a startling crimson. There were also lakes that were crystal clear, because the water in them was so acidic that it held all the iron, and sulfur, and selenium, and God knows what in solution.
The truth is, as a kid, I had no idea this wasn't the way things had started out. We used to ride our bikes out to "the desert" to climb hills and scramble through rubble-choked canyons, never realizing that there aren't supposed to be any damn deserts in Kentucky.
You know what? That wasn't mountaintop removal. That was "plain old" surface mining. Mountaintop removal mining is far, far worse.
But there is something you can do to keep new generations of kids from growing up in the Appalachian Desert. Help them know the mountains by getting your representative to sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act. The act already has 103, 105, 107 cosponsors. Check the list to see if your representative is already on board. If so, thank them and let them know this issue is important to you. If not, it's even more important that you contact them and tell them to sign on. It wouldn't hurt to follow up with a visit to the public comment page for the Bush administration's efforts to weaken existing laws and expand mountaintop removal mining.
Because this is the weekend and most congressional offices are not staffed for calls, I'm not going to put up a list of 'target Democrats' today. However, I encourage you to take this opportunity to call my representative, Russ Carnahan. You can email him, or call him at 202-225-2671 (DC) or 314-962-1523 (St. Louis). Will you get an answer today? Maybe not. But if Russ was to get to the office on Monday and find his mailbox overflowing with notes about the Clean Water Protection Act, it might be just the thing to wake him up.
Peek in after a break to see the growing list of kossacks who have already joined in this effort. Thanks.
My Heroes
These kossacks have taken a moment to contact a representative about the Clean Water Protection Act. In some green future, when the mountains have been saved and the streams flow free, look for these names carved into the hillside No, no no! Engraved on a nice plaque. Sheesh.
afguy08 | rlamoureux | faithfull |
plf515 | susie dow | Mogolori |
Leslie in CA | neia | crose |
cham | Jim in AZ | betson08 |
Jersey Joe | SethO | LisaZ |
ezdidit | emmasnacker | RunawayRose |
bklynDrew | prodigalkat | goblin |
Gabriele Droz | gloryous1 | slksfca |
waitingforvizzini | madgranny | Janet Strange |
Prof Dave | QuarterHorseDem | Count Imbroglio |
willb48 | word is bond | beabea |
WeatherDem | lgmcp | AntKat |
LJR | dgil | makfan |
Elise | alicia | Lazyhorse |
takeback | dashat | mon |
taxismom | keepyourcoins | va dare |
If I missed anyone, please let me know. Oh, and let me know if you've made 5 or more calls. I'm gonna start handing out trophies (of the virtual sort, at least).