This Article originally provided by The Lexington Herald-Leader

March 10, 2008

Wrong way to promote tourism

If Eastern Kentucky wants to promote tourism, the directors of Camp Blanton in Harlan County have an odd way of showing it.

The camp, which is near the Blanton Forest State Nature Preserve's trail head, abruptly canceled the reservations of two environmental groups that had been planning to hold annual conferences there.

Hundreds of people from all over the Eastern United States would have traveled to Harlan County, spending money but, more important, going home to tell others of the magnificent old-growth forest, the clear water, amazing rock formations and the mountain family who preserved it all.

They might also have carried home information about Pine Mountain, the Cumberland Gap, Breaks Interstate Park, the Country Music Highway, Butcher Hollow, J.D. Maggard's Cash Store, the Carcassone square dance or the Mountain Arts Center.

Instead, word will go far and wide that the coal bosses still run Harlan County and don't tolerate anyone speaking against them.

A member of the Camp Blanton board would say only that the board had pulled the reservations because it didn't want to involve the camp "in the kind of controversies" in which the environmental groups are involved, an apparent reference to opposition to mountaintop removal mining.

Well, here's a news flash: The kinds of tourists who drive for hours to walk in the woods, watch birds, sleep in a tent or cast a fly probably aren't going to be big fans of blowing up mountains and burying streams.

Rejection of outsiders and their ideas is nothing new in the coal fields. It reminds us of when idealistic college graduates, inspired by RFK, LBJ and Harry Caudill's writings, wanted to come to Eastern Kentucky to teach, but were rejected because they had no kin who could vote in school board elections.

In a way, the action by the Camp Blanton board makes the environmentalist case better than any protest: As long as coal keeps its death grip on Eastern Kentucky's politics and economy, nothing else will have a chance to succeed or maybe even get started.