UNC Students in Mingo County for Fall Break

Many students at the University of North Carolina never have the chance to be immersed in the open and loving culture that characterizes Appalachia, but over our five-day fall break, nine of us got to do just that.

From Chapel Hill, NC, we came to Mingo County, WV, to the Sludge Safety Project, not quite knowing what to expect.

We left reluctantly, not quite knowing how to explain to our friends and family what we experienced.

The issues we learned about, the friends we made and the stories we heard are only the beginning of what our contact will ultimately mean to all of us.

As environmentalists, we were drawn to West Virginia by our interest in how coal mining issues were degrading the mountains. Now we’ve seen how the same problems that are affecting our environment are even more notably affecting people.

Empowered by the independence of camping in some of the state’s most beautiful state parks and forests, we were eager to take in as much information as we could about the issues in the area, with a particular focus on the water distribution from Larry Brown’s church in Rawl holler. Being able to help with distributing water from the church opened us up to a flood of people who were being directly affected by the contamination. Most of us had heard that the coal companies were making things hard on communities in this region, but we had no idea that it was to the point of not having clean drinking water.

UNC students distribute literature in Delbarton during their fall break.

We also circulated copies of the Pan Appalachian Defender (a multi-state newspaper and a project of Mountain Justice Summer) to people walking in and out of Walmart, as well as issuing them door-to-door in Delbarton.

We heard story after story – not only are people’s wells affected, but their walls were cracking and their windows were busting because of blasting.

All of us are overcome with appreciation for how quickly and openly we were accepted and thanked for doing what work we could for the short amount of time we could be there. We were even welcomed into homes for dinner and to sleep one night when it was raining.

Our time in Mingo County powerfully encouraged us to raise awareness of the problems that we saw and experienced.

Using our stories along with further research, we have convinced the student council to investigate the sources of the coal that fuels our university’s huge energy usage.

Plans are already underway to team up with other giant universities in North Carolina to influence the practices of coal companies.

Before traveling, our group joined the EPA’s "Change a light bulb, change the world" campaign to encourage our friends, family and surrounding communities to be more energy conscious in order to ultimately reduce America’s dependence on coal, in turn slowing down the need for massive extraction methods such as mountaintop removal, not to mention global warming.

We understood the environmental implications of our efforts; now we understand the social effects of them.

Don’t think that this is the last you’ll see of UNC students. We are already planning a spring visit!