Mining Appalachia: The Lives of Women

The Cen­tral Appalachian Women’s Tri­bunal on Cli­mate Jus­tice in Charleston, West Vir­ginia: Reflec­tions and Women’s Sto­ries about Moun­tain­top Removal

The Cen­tral Appalachian Women’s Tri­bunal on Cli­mate Jus­tice on May 10, 2012, was a pow­er­ful and mean­ing­ful event of local women lift­ing up their voices and engag­ing in action to pro­tect the health and integrity of their fam­i­lies, their com­mu­ni­ties, and their land. I was hon­ored and ener­gized to be in this gath­er­ing of pow­er­ful grass­roots advo­cates who are work­ing hard to take care of the things they love. The speak­ers and lead­ers of this event were local res­i­dents who shared their per­sonal sto­ries of wit­ness­ing the dev­as­tat­ing effects of Moun­tain­top Removal (MTR) Coal Min­ing in their home­land of Appalachia. Some of these local women have won pres­ti­gious awards, gained national recog­ni­tion, and/or been inter­viewed in doc­u­men­taries for their great efforts. They come from a four state area: TN, WV, VA, and KY.

These women’s lives have been dras­ti­cally impacted by MTR and I was con­victed and inspired by their sto­ries. Hear­ing their tes­ti­monies, I am ever more com­mit­ted to con­tinue to pray and work for an end to the destruc­tive prac­tice of MTR that is dam­ag­ing this part of God’s cre­ation. I hope you will join me in these efforts, both from read­ing these glimpses of local res­i­dents’ sto­ries and from know­ing our bib­li­cal, the­o­log­i­cal, and denom­i­na­tional man­date to care for God’s creation.

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It’s not pos­si­ble to destroy our moun­tains with­out destroy­ing us. It’s not pos­si­ble to poi­son our streams with­out poi­son­ing our chil­dren… For all the voices you hear today, remem­ber there are oth­ers who have been silenced or intim­i­dated.
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Peo­ple of faith have every rea­son to engage this strug­gle as a core part of their Chris­t­ian voca­tion and iden­tity. As Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) pol­icy from 1990 says, “God’s work in cre­ation is too won­der­ful, too ancient, too beau­ti­ful, too good to be des­e­crated.” God’s work in the moun­tains of the south­east­ern United States is: the work of these pow­er­ful women, this vital stand against MTR, and the beauty and health of Appalachian communities.

The gath­er­ing last week was one in a series of global tri­bunals that help to lift up the par­tic­u­lar vul­ner­a­bil­ity of women to, and strength in the face of, cli­mate change. These tri­bunals have given voice and recog­ni­tion to women who live all around the world and are fight­ing for jus­tice in their envi­ron­ment. Reflec­tions from this Appalachian tri­bunal will go to the “Rio+20” United Nations Con­fer­ence on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment this June 20–22, 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I will be at the Earth Sum­mit as part of the World Coun­cil of Churches del­e­ga­tion, and will be shar­ing with Pres­by­te­ri­ans and oth­ers back home my sense of the devel­op­ments there. This local Women’s Tri­bunal was a great first step to this impor­tant global con­fer­ence and will influ­ence my par­tic­i­pa­tion there.

Women of Appalachia Share Their Sto­ries & Ideas
Nearly twenty women shared their per­sonal sto­ries, tes­ti­monies, ideas, and demands related to Moun­tain­top Removal Coal Min­ing. While noth­ing can replace being in per­son to hear someone’s story, here are some of the words and sto­ries I took away with me from local res­i­dents that I want to share with you. I can­not ver­ify that my hand-written notes cap­tured exact quo­ta­tions, so although I will rep­re­sent them (for clar­ity) in quo­ta­tion marks, this is my dis­claimer that the actual word­ing may have been slightly different!

We Are the Moun­tains
“It’s not pos­si­ble to destroy our moun­tains with­out destroy­ing us. It’s not pos­si­ble to poi­son our streams with­out poi­son­ing our chil­dren… For all the voices you hear today, remem­ber there are oth­ers who have been silenced or intim­i­dated.” From a woman who can remem­ber watch­ing the blast­ing on the moun­tains from her bed­room win­dow since she was 5 years old.

Safe to Birth My Chil­dren
A 25 year old woman, who knows that the legacy of envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion in her moun­tains will “stunt Applachi­ans’ health before they’re even born,” wants MTR stopped because she desires that it be “safe to birth my future chil­dren in my homeland…living where our fam­i­lies have lived for gen­er­a­tions.” Know­ing that in Appalachia “we need healthy babies for a big­ger, brighter future,” she argues that we must undo the “shack­les around our good health.”

Not One Untouched by Ill­ness
A nurse takes note of “strange and seri­ous ill­nesses” in her home ter­ri­tory (after going away for nurs­ing train­ing and then com­ing back home). She was par­tic­u­larly stunned by an extremely rare ill­ness that took the life of her cousin (an ill­ness with which only 20,000 peo­ple have ever been diag­nosed) that is now the diag­no­sis of another per­son in her com­mu­nity and one more nearby. She says there is not one home located near coal mines that has been untouched by seri­ous illness.

Excus­ing Can­cer
A woman whose 12 year old daugh­ter lost a class­mate to cancer—the same daugh­ter hav­ing severe sinus trou­bles because of MTR (includ­ing the mem­brane in her nos­trils being cut by the lose rock dust the fam­ily had to breathe)—shared her anger that her daughter’s health was being sac­ri­ficed to the energy demands of cheap coal in this coun­try. This woman’s fam­ily stayed sick the entire time they were blow­ing up the moun­tain above their home. To add insult to energy, the reports from the coal com­pany dis­counted the health dis­par­i­ties in these com­mu­ni­ties affected by MTR coal min­ing because the case stud­ies didn’t take into account “con­san­guin­ity” (in-breeding)! (If any­one is look­ing for an exam­ple of envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice (i.e. envi­ron­men­tal racism and clas­sism), here it is! Outrageous!)

Coal Is King
Com­ing from a fam­ily that has been in coal min­ing for gen­er­a­tions, one woman shared that in her 20 year saga of try­ing to pro­tect her land, it has been an ongo­ing bat­tle that takes a ton of work, and unfor­tu­nately “peo­ple here are fright­ened of the indus­try.” In many fam­i­lies, peo­ple worry “they’ll take my pension…burn down my house” and she shrugs as she speaks, know­ing their fears are real­is­tic and part of the fab­ric of this strug­gle. She has fought long and hard, push­ing politi­cians who often won’t do any­thing, which she rec­og­nizes is because “it is polit­i­cal sui­cide to try to do any­thing” against coal in this part of the coun­try. Yet she has hope, even as there’s another round of fight­ing ahead (the coal com­pany has yet again filed per­mits for the land near her home, per­mits that have been denied mul­ti­ple times). She smiles and says, “Get all these ladies together and do what women do and that’s win the battles!”

Lungs into Con­crete
Another woman whose male rela­tions are all in coal min­ing, and who her­self was a stay-at-home mom, shared her story about being “thrust” into this move­ment by the coal com­pany itself. How could she have a choice when this MTR coal min­ing “can turn lungs into con­crete,” and when con­stantly “babies are wak­ened by noise” and when a tod­dler in his bed was crushed by a boul­der falling into his house from the moun­tain­top above? Sludge gets into the water. She declares, this is “equiv­a­lent to a war zone.” She wants her chil­dren to know that they have choices. So when her leg­is­la­tor, agree­ing with her in prin­ci­pal but ner­vous to take action says “we have an awful lot of coal” she retorts “we also have a lot of sun and air.” She is clear that “they mine coal where we live, not we live where they mine coal.” Fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties come first. And, besides, “Noth­ing else mat­ters if we can’t breathe the air and drink the water.”

Cal­cu­lat­ing Cost
Telling a story about an old preacher who laid a dol­lar over the scrip­ture selec­tion about it being hard for a rich per­son to get to heaven (and then ask­ing some­one who wasn’t see­ing the point, “well, can you see it now?!”) another woman focused on fol­low­ing the money in this debate. She has seen the med­ical expenses in her com­mu­nity, the cost of roads (dri­ven on by too-heavy coal trucks) going into the creeks, and the flood­ing in her com­mu­nity. She wants these eco­nomic costs to be part of the dis­cus­sion. When peo­ple talk about the eco­nomic boon of coal min­ing, do they con­sider these things that mat­ter to local residents?

Com­mu­nity Lost
When dis­cussing the effects that MTR coal min­ing has on the local com­mu­nity, one woman shares that the coal mines “after they ruin your com­mu­nity and qual­ity of life, then they come in and offer money to buy you out.” She has seen 30 com­mu­ni­ties dry up and dis­ap­pear in her 44 years of liv­ing in the area. She says “you can’t have Moun­tain­top Removal and communities…it’s one or the other.”

Con­nec­tion to the Land, Bro­ken
Another woman talks about the chem­i­cals in water, air, and land. One fam­ily report­edly has a con­tin­u­ous flame in their well because of the explo­sive methane that seeped into their water sup­ply from min­ing. Birds and fish are dying, she explained, and prop­erty val­ues plum­met because homes are cov­ered in coal dust. Moun­tain gin­seng and moun­tain flow­ers are buried. Fam­ily cemetaries are some­times made inac­ces­si­ble because of coal min­ing. One ceme­tery was pushed over by a bull­dozer. All of these things break the sense local res­i­dents have of belong­ing to the land.

Divide and Con­quer
A woman who started stand­ing up to the coal com­pany in her town started explain­ing how the fab­ric of com­mu­nity is torn by the coal com­pany: “fear.” If her truck was in her neigh­bors’ dri­ve­way, her neigh­bors got in trou­ble for asso­ci­at­ing with her. She lost her best friend. She stopped being asked to serve on vol­un­teer orga­ni­za­tions because the coal com­pany wouldn’t give dona­tions to any local orga­ni­za­tions that activists, like her, were a part of (even if they didn’t have any­thing to do with the strug­gle against coal min­ing). Peo­ple were afraid and felt con­trolled, and they got alien­ated from each other.

No More Porches
The long-time cus­tom of “porch sit­ting” is another exam­ple of how com­mu­ni­ties are harmed by coal min­ing, says another woman. You can’t sit on your porch with the huge trucks going by, coal dust spew­ing, she explained. MTR coal min­ing also reduces the labor pool, so that cre­ates ten­sion. Drug use has gone up, the more peo­ple get depressed and look for out­lets to escape.

One Woman Refuses to Be Put Out of Her Grandfather’s Home
A “stub­born holler dweller” (as she was called by the EPA) stood up to the coal com­pany in her area and received seri­ous death threats. Encour­aged to move to a hotel, she stood her ground. With a 6 ft chain link fence, secu­rity cam­eras, and attack dog, this local woman would “not be put out of my grandfather’s home,” even when peo­ple were caught sneak­ing into her prop­erty. It is her home and she has a right to stay there.

A Peo­ple Orphaned
“Mom and Dad’s chim­ney was pulled away from the wall” and they “lost access to water” because of coal min­ing, another woman said. When her par­ents lost access, the coal com­pany gra­ciously brought a bar­rel of water over, pour­ing bleach in it when it was obvi­ously full of things you could see float­ing around in it. This woman, not trust­ing any­thing, took a sam­ple. Her sam­ple showed the water was not fit to drink. This strug­gle some­times is just “too hard… peo­ple decide to move.” Her par­ents stayed, but one huge blast and shak­ing of the house brought a heart attack to her Dad. A year later, after hav­ing been moved away, her Mom died “cry­ing to go back home.” This woman tells us “I feel like an orphan…People have no idea what we go through.”

No Bap­tisms in This River
A local pas­tor reports that the local river isn’t one where you can put your feet in or catch fish from. “No bap­tisms in this river,” she says. Mean­while, the receiv­ing chairs on her porch are cov­ered in coal ash. The prayer con­cern list at church has “so many health prob­lems.” She believes in the state­ment from Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. that the church should be the head­lights, but that in this case, the church is the tail­lights in stand­ing up for the peo­ple in Appalachia against coal min­ing companies.

Bur­den of Proof
At first in denial over the dev­as­ta­tion of MTR, hav­ing bought land and built a dream house, another local woman was forced to accept it when her well water turned bright orange. She shares resigned dis­be­lief that the bur­den of proof was on her (and her pock­et­book) to prove that it was the coal company’s fault. This was a “huge wake-up call,” she says.  She quickly came to real­ize that many state offi­cials have a kind of cul­ture of “cus­tomer rela­tions” with min­ers that they don’t have with res­i­dents. Mean­while, she found that when she sam­pled her water, she had to send it 70 miles away (refrig­er­at­ing it that whole time) because the company’s water tester will “switch your sam­ples for tap water” so again, “the bur­den of proof is on me.”

The Women of Appalachian Coal Min­ing
These women are strong, wise, and coura­geous. I was hon­ored to be in their pres­ence and hope that you will join me in prayer and action to help them pro­tect their homes. In addi­tion to the strong stance that the Pres­by­ter­ian Church USA has long taken—that low-income com­mu­ni­ties not be dis­pro­por­tion­ately impacted by neg­a­tive envi­ron­men­tal practices—in 2006 the PCUSA Gen­eral Assem­bly approved a res­o­lu­tion to aban­don the use of moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing. We believe that the earth is God’s, and all peo­ple and all parts of cre­ation are to be val­ued, respected, and tended with care. I pray that we will indeed join our hearts, minds, and bod­ies to this faith­ful call and work for an end to MTR.

“They put their hand to the flinty rock, and over­turn moun­tains by the roots. They cut out chan­nels in the rocks, and their eyes see every pre­cious thing. The sources of the rivers they probe; hid­den things they bring to light. But where shall wis­dom be found? And where is the place of under­stand­ing?” Job 28:9–12

Learn more about moun­tain­top removal. Check out infor­ma­tion from the National Coun­cil of Churches.

Read the 2011 study on the asso­ci­a­tion between moun­tain­top min­ing and birth defects. View a sum­mary and fact sheet of the find­ings.

Take action to end the destruc­tive prac­tices of moun­tain­top removal. Sign the National Coun­cil of Churches peti­tion.

Get involved with Pres­by­ter­ian Envi­ron­men­tal Min­istries.