Resource Rich, Dirt Poor: Time for a New Deal in Appalachia

by: Clem Guttata

Thu Jun 07, 2007 at 21:07:32 PM EDT

Erik Reece, Credit: The Courier-Journal.com

I agree with Erik Reece of Lexington, KY. It's time for a 'new deal' for Appalachia (h/t to va dare for the link):

A form of strip mining called mountaintop removal has ripped apart all of the ridgelines that surround this forest, leaving miles of lifeless gray plateaus, lunar wastelands. Mountaintop removal entails the blasting of entire summits to rubble in an effort to reach, as quickly and inexpensively as possible, thin seams of bituminous coal. Trees, topsoil and sandstone are dumped into the valleys below. More than 1,000 miles of streams have been buried in this way, and an Environmental Protection Agency study found that 95 percent of headwater streams near mines have been contaminated by heavy metals leeching from the sites.

When it comes to mountaintop removal, a certain fatalism seems to take hold in Appalachia -- the coal companies are too powerful, some politicians are corrupt, the regulators won't regulate and the news media don't care. But we cannot give up on rehabilitating Appalachia.

Erik Reece continues outlining not only the problems we face, but a hopeful future for new solutions as well.

Appalachia's land is dying. Its fractured communities show the typical symptoms of hopelessness, including OxyContin abuse rates higher than anywhere in the country. Meanwhile, 22 states power houses and businesses with Kentucky coal. The people of central and southern Appalachia have relinquished much of their natural wealth to the rest of the country and have received next to nothing in return.

To right these wrongs, first we need federal legislation that will halt the decapitation of mountains and bring accountability to an industry that is out of control. Then we need a New Deal for Appalachia that would expand the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative, or create a similar program, to finally return some of the region's lost wealth in the form of jobs and trees, rebuilt topsoil and resuscitated communities.

Financing should come from a carbon tax on Appalachian coal bought and burned by utility companies across the country -- a tax that would also discourage the wasteful emissions of greenhouse gases. Such a project would educate and employ an entire generation of foresters and forest managers, who would be followed by locally owned wood-product industries and craftsmen like Patrick Angel's brother Mike, who makes much sought-after hardwood chairs just like ones his grandfather fashioned.

We know that our species, and most other species, will survive only in a future that burns no coal or oil. The question now is whether we have the nerve to get there before the world's oldest mountains are gone.

I couldn't agree more. Let's start investing financial resources in sustainable development. The extraction economy has been a disaster for this region--liquid coal is not the answer. Sustainable energy solutions are sustainable economic solutions.