I took a road trip out to West Virginia recently to hear and see firsthand the impact of mountaintop removal coal-mining. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is fighting the construction of a huge new coal-fired power plant in Surry County, Virginia, which would add hazardous and illegal amounts of mercury and nitrogen pollution to the Chesapeake Bay and nearby rivers.
But I also wondered: What about the pollution all the way up at the beginning of the coal production line?
And what about the impact on human lives?
I'm a musician, and I've always thought the best way to tell a story is through song. So I visited legendary West Virginia songwriter Mike Morningstar. He writes folk songs about strip mining and performs them as a form of protest.
But to find him, I had to drive six hours into the mountains, ending up on a long gravel road that tiptoed beside a cliff.
Finally, I found Mike's cabin. It looked idyllic, with woodsmoke pouring out of the chimney and a line of hollowed-out gourds decorating the front porch.
Mike (at left, on guitar) was there with his neighbor and right-hand man, Rick Roberts (at right, on mandolin).
They were happy to see me, because they are trying to get the word out about a new CD they've created with a coalition of other songwriters. It's called "Still Moving Mountains" and it is available online here.
They sat on Mike's couch and played. I tape-recorded them for a public radio program on their music, which you can listen to online by clicking here.
They started off with Mike's song, "The Buffalo Creek Disaster." It's a powerful narrative about a 1972 flood caused by strip mining that killed 118 people -- including 30 children under the age of 10. Mike and his brother were inspired to write it after a friend recounted pulling the children's corpses out of the mud and rubble.
"They strip off all the topsoil and uproot all those trees," Mike sang. "They killed those folks in Buffalo Creek, and then shrug the blame with ease. Don't give a damn for life or land, just roll on like they please."
For all the lyrics, click here. Although the disaster happened more than 30 years ago, Mike believes the lyrics have more relevance than ever today because surface mining practices have only become more invasive in the decades since then.
After a couple songs, they let me join in on guitar and jam with them. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I just strummed chords, but Rick is a real mandolin virtuoso, and he also broke out the fiddle for one song. Mike's voice is warm and resonant, and oddly soothing -- even when he's singing in protest.
But what I like best about Mike is the way he lives his life. Yes, he makes a little money performing at clubs and bars. But mostly, he and his wife Donna live as organic farmers.
They have 25 chickens and eight horses. And they use the manure to fertilize corn, green beans, pumpkins, peaches and many other fruits and vegetables. Instead of going to the store, they can their own produce and keep it packed away in a cellar. They get all of their meat from deer that Mike hunts and then carefully dries.
The best part: Mike brews his own rhubarb wine, watermellon wine and pear wine.
They also showed me the shelf in their pantry lined with a rainbow-hued spectrum of glass jars filled with all of the jams and jellies that they make from their berries and fruits. Three different kinds of grape jelly. Hawthorne berry jelly. Jalapeno jelly. Cherry jelly. And don't forget the apple butter.
Mike very generously provided me with jars of white grape jelly to take back to my family. A genuinely nice guy.
Even though it was December, he still had veggies in his garden. He pulled up four rolling-pin sized carrots for me to give to my daughters.
(My youngest daughter, who is tiny and rarely eats anything, picked up one of these monster organic carrots -- which loomed as large as a baseball bat in her hands -- and devoured it.)
Here is Mike's pantry, full of his preserved foods.
His wife, Donna, said: "We've learned to live off the grid, and to live close to nature, just for the sake of our own self-preservation. But also because we believe that this way, we are not generating so much waste."
But make no mistake about it. Despite their sweetness, they are angry. They are fighting to stop the "mountaintop removal" coal mining practices that include blowing up and scraping off hill summits, and dumping the waste into stream valleys.
Mike sings:
"Ever since I was a little baby, I've been living in these hills and I've been playing in these waters. But before I'd see it gone, I'd rather kill. Don't take these hills, don't change these waters. Always let their beauty be. As long as we've got our homeland, mountaineers are always free."
To learn more about mountaintop removal mining, click here.
Mike chooses to express his anger through art, picking up a guitar instead of a gun. And he knows that while his lyrics can't stop bulldozers, melodies can move souls. And his hope is that people will think twice about the true price of coal, both human and in the broken bones and teeth of the landscape.
Mike's life is also a quiet form of protest. Through the choreography of his mundane daily routine -- digging carrots, canning peaches -- he is showing that you don't have to abuse the land to absorb its energy.
That's a song all of us could sing.
(Photos at bottom and top of mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachian region courtesy of ilovemountains.org. All other photos by Tom Pelton)
I love where you live, when you describe the place where you grew up gives me a little envious, still working and giving all your effort, congratulations to your entire family!
Posted by: childhood obesity | 05/06/2010 at 12:07 PM