Berea College students raise awareness about Wilson Creek

This entry was posted by Madison County Chapter co-chair and Berea College student Beth Bissmeyer and written with Floyd County native and Berea College student Nathan Hall.

With the December 1^st hearing date for the Wilson Creek Lands Unsuitable for Mining petition just weeks away, efforts to organize and build awareness around this issue are growing. Nathan Hall, a Floyd County native currently enrolled at Berea College, organized an opportunity for fellow students to sign KFTC’s online petition in support of the Lands Unsuitable petition as a joint effort with student-group Bereans For Appalachia. Nathan and other students tabled in the Campus Post Office during the lunch hour on Friday, when the building gets the most traffic. At the table, students could also learn general information about Mountaintop Removal mining and the situation on Wilson Creek through KFTC materials and the website.

Later that evening, Berea College was host to the premiere of the new documentary Appalachia: A History of Mountains and Peoplewhich provides a 500 million year history of the region and will air as a four-part series on PBS in April. Nathan set up a similar table for the filmgoers to sign onto the petition and learn about the background of the issue. All in all, more than two dozen people signed onto the petition, and many more assured Nathan that they had received one of the campus-wide emails he had organized and that they either had signed the petition already or would sign it very shortly from their own computers.

Bereans For Appalachia (BFA) is also organizing another tabling event on the day of the hearing. Several members have also expressed interest in going to the Lands Unsuitable hearing to show their support for the Wilson Creek community fighting to protect their community. Saxon Brown, a Berea College freshman and BFA member from Missouri, is one of a handful of students who has recently become aware of the issue and is now planning to travel to Floyd County for the hearing – and she's bringing her mom before she heads back to Missouri!

While the ultimate decision to be made by the Kentucky Department of Mining Reclamation and Enforcement will not be known for some time, they will undoubtedly know that there is widespread support for this community's right to determine their own future that is free of destructive surface mining.

If you haven't already done so, please sign onto our letter of comment to the Lands Unsuitable for Mining Petition!