Carrie and Michael Klein are from Elkings, West Virginia and have been traveling through Appalachia for a great deal of time. They have presented their program, Voices From The Rubble: Oral Testimonies of Mountaintop Removal Mining, to people all through Appalachia, and have even had the chance to interview multiple coal miners about their experiences. Their presentation consists of both recorded testimony and musical testimony: songs that they have written about the problems in Appalachia.
The program started with recorded interviews about how things used to be in Appalachia. The people in the interviews described how generations of their families had grown up in the areas that are now being destroyed, and about how they are being forced out by the coal companies.
Carrie and Michael then sang their first musical testimony. Their first song was about Harlan County in Eastern Kentucky. Carrie and Michael sang in harmony, “And you spend your life just thinking ‘bout how to get away.” The couple also sang, “And you spend your life diggin’ coal from the bottom of your grave.” This first song made it very clear that people who try to escape these areas usually can’t get away. They are essentially stuck in these areas where they will contract many diseases and problems due to the mining in the area, and will eventually die at a young age.
After the first testimony, Carrie and Michael talked about what mountain top removal is, and the effect it is having on Appalachia. In mountain top removal, the coal companies remove the entire top of the mountain in order to get to the coal. After this removal, they simply dump everything they removed into a near-by valley, causing flooding and poor water quality in mountain communities near by.
Along with these, there are also many other bad effects that mountain top removal causes. This process tears up thousands of acres of useable ginseng, which could have been harvested and sold to bring money into the community. This process also causes well water to run orange out of faucets, and makes farming nearly impossible as the land is no longer farmable and the toxic floods kill most of the animals on the farms. In one of the interviews, one woman reported the creek behind her house would run black water twice a week because of all the sludge the mining was causing. Because of this, fish are easily killed and the orange dust will kill off most of the bird population.
Carrie and Michael then sang another testimony where they stated; “They’re tearing us apart and the mountain side where we were born.” In this particular song, they talked a lot about how coal companies were forcing people out of their homes by buying up the land. Those who would not sell their homes were forced out anyways because of all the effects mining and mountain top removal has on their homes.
The program ended by talking a little about what can be done to solve this problem. It was stated that coal companies are supposed to grow trees and grass after they leave the sight. However, they don’t make much of an effort to do this, and the soil is destroyed after they are done. The land may not be healthy and farmable again for up to 10 years after the coal company leaves. They found that one of the best things that can be done is to educate more. Most people don’t know about these problems, and may be willing to help if they could.
If you would like to know more about this topic, or if you would like to make a donation to the cause, you can contact “The Keeper Of The Mountains Foundation” at 304-205-0920, or check out their website at http://www.mountainkeeper.org/
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