Lessons on the mountain: Virginia Tech students witness the scars caused by mountaintop coal mining at Kayford Mountain, W.Va.

Roanoke (Va.) Times, Don Simmons Jr, Nov. 16, 2004

Betsy Bernard stared at the scarred landscape in disbelief as dump trucks two-stories tall carried away load after load of what used to be a mountaintop….

Piles of rocks as big as a Volkswagen Beetle lay at points along the open pit. Peaks that used to soar above her vantage point in 45-degree angles had been flattened. The refuse was tipped into the valleys below and sprayed with gray-green hydro-seed grass, all

according to federal reclamation guidelines.

Larry Gibson had warned the 18 Virginia Tech Appalachian Studies students about the view as they neared the finish of a three-hour bus trip from Blacksburg to Kayford Mountain, W.Va. Gibson still owns about 50 acres on one of Kayford's peaks.

The view from his family cemetery reveals 360 degrees of ruin caused by what the coal industry calls the most modern and efficient means of harvesting the Appalachian coal crop.

Gibson, 58, came to Blacksburg last week to tell Tech students about the human and environmental costs of coal, which supplies slightly more than 50 percent of the nation's electricity.

"I used to have to look up in every direction from my mountain to see the sky," Gibson told professor Sam Cook's class last Thursday morning. "Now it's the highest peak for miles."

On Saturday's bus trip, the students got to see for themselves. Expressions of shock began to voice themselves soon after the bus pulled off the turnpike at Sharon and began its run up the hollow along Cabin Creek. … Around one bend, the entire busload craned their necks to the left as an 800-foot-high valley fill - where what was once a V-shaped hollow was suffocated in waste material from the mines above - came into view.

..For five years Cook has taken his Appalachian Studies students on this field trip to Gibson's homestead. … "I want them to see the human cost of mining, but also how we're all dependent on it, too," Cook said. "It's a chance for my students to hear voices they won't otherwise hear and think about the future."

…"Seeing it was shocking and appalling and I don't want something like that happening here," said Bernard, a Blacksburg native who enjoys hiking in her down time. "The people who have the money are really making the decisions about what's allowed and that's really scary and wrong."

"Y'all aren't just students," Gibson implored. "One day some of you will

be in positions of power. It might not be in time to save my mountain, but maybe you can bring attention to this cancer on the land and prevent it from happening somewhere else."