The People Comment Passionately On
Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

July 24, 2003

Comments by Pam Medlin from Charlotte, North Carolina

I'm Pam Medlin from Charlotte, North Carolina representing family and friends from McDowell County, West Virginia.

My eight year old son came to me recently with tears in his eyes asking,

"Mommy, why don't they realize that cutting down the mountains and the trees causes flooding and hurts the Earth? Even I know that and I'm just a kid!"

That single statement stung me. My immediate family no longer lives in West Virginia. My kids don't have to live with the fear of another flood or slurry dam breaking, yet they feel the pain of their friends and cousins still living in the coalfields of West Virginia.

When my son heard me planning my trip here today, he begged to come along.

"Why do you want to go?" I asked him. His reply?

"So I can ask the coal company and the coal miners myself why they hate little kids so much, they'd put them into danger. Why they can't find better ways to make electricity and why they can't be nice to the Earth."

Again, I was stunned by the intelligence of an eight year old child. If he could understand then surely coal companies and the government could also understand.

This Earth is a gift given to all of us for the short amount of time we're here. Not just big business and people with money. For someone to have the audacity to think they can improve on the gifts we've been given, leaves me at a loss for words.

What's going to be left for future generations? We're watching the last of the hardwood forests being trucked out of here and seeing flattened scarred land where majestic mountains once stood.

Can you, the coal company, or you, the government look into the innocent eyes of a child and honestly say you tried to do something good for the Earth and their future? That you didn't think mountaintop removal was bad for the Earth?

We ask you to take an honest and unbiased look at the government's own research. They have proven without a shadow of a doubt....a shadow of a doubt, that mountaintop removal and valley fill destroys our environment and our future.

We ask that you extend the deadline for comments on the Environmental Impact Statement so that all people can read and fully understand the devastation our own government is permitting to continue.

Perhaps it is time that we all realize we're in this together. There are alternatives and together we can all succeed in making a difference.

Remember the words of a child,

"Even I know that and I'm just a kid!"