This article originally published in WV Metro News

October 17, 2006

Writing For The Mountains

MetroNews
Charleston, Kanawha County

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A group of Appalachian writers is calling on Congress to end mountaintop removal mining.

The group of 20 writers spent two days, this week, touring parts of Southern West Virginia and meeting with residents who live in the shadows of mountaintop removal mines.

"The quality of life, in a broad sense, the quality of life is being deeply damaged," says Poet Laureate Irene McKinney when asked about what she saw on the tour that included a flyover of Kayford Mountain.

The writers talked with residents from Mingo, Logan, Lincoln, Boone and Raleigh counties. "Many of these people witnessed in their own lives their children becoming sick...and people whose houses are being destroyed by it," says McKinney.

In a letter a dozen writers drafted, the group calls on Congress to take, what they call, "immediate action" to "save our children, our people and our mountains." The group is calling for an end to mountaintop removal mining.

The letter includes comments West Virginia residents offered the writers. "One little boy wears his shoes to bed because he's afraid the impoundment dam will break behind the house and he'll have to get up in the night and run out and he has nightmares," says McKinney. "Those kind of very specific things are what touch my heart."

"These are real people," says McKinney. "These are not just stories, these are their lives."

The Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and the Friends of the Mountains Coalition organized the tour.

The following regional poets and writers have signed the statement: Bob Henry Baber, Laura Treacy Bentley, Diane Gillam Fisher, Denise Giardina, Chris Green, Jeff Mann, Sam L. Martin, Irene McKinney, Rob Merritt, Delilah F. O'Haynes, Edwina Pendarvis, John Van Kirk and Beth Wellington.