Winds of Change Newsletter, February 2006     See sidebar for table of contents

Our Voices Are Being Heard Nationally and Internationally!

In January, news about the destruction of our communities, forested mountains and headwater streams traveled to people far beyond the “Billion Dollar Coalfields.”

Three national magazines, E Magazine, Orion, and Waterkeeper, and one international newspaper carried in-depth articles about mountaintop removal coal mining in their January issues. The newspaper, Christian Science Monitor, interviewed several people from Boone County:

“I’m bitterly opposed to mountaintop removal, because it takes jobs away from coal miners,” says Jim Foster, a Bob White resident who has retired from a union job in an underground mine, who volunteered for the local fire department for decades…

The reason the rest of the world is learning more and more about what is happening to our mountains and our hollows is because we are banding together, speaking out and demanding our rights.

Orion magazine promoted its issue with Erik Reece’s story on the massacre of our mountains with mentions on many National Public Radio affiliates. WV Public Radio apparently would not run the promos because it only mentions the words “mountaintop removal” in news stories.

Orion mailed copies of the Jan./Feb. issue to every US Senator and Congressman (Senators also got a copy of Erik Reece’s book, Lost Mountain), as well as to all the state Legislators in WV, Ky. and Tenn! If you haven’t contacted your national and state representatives recently about mountaintop removal, now might be a great time. You can ask their staff if they read the Orion article that came in the mail. If not you can direct them to www.oriononline.org, where they can read an abridged copy of the article.