Making connections with our members

One of the cool things about KFTC’s Fall Fundraising Campaign is that we have a chance to talk with our members and find out more about the people who make up this organization. Tonight I had the pleasure of talking with Janice in Jeffersonville, Indiana. Here’s what I learned:

Janice and her family joined KFTC earlier this year after attending a fundraiser that was organized by high school youth at the First Unitarian Church in Louisville.

At that event, participants were urged to attend the upcoming I love Mountains Rally in Frankfort. Janice decided she ought to learn as much as she could about the issue before going to the rally. She gathered information from KFTC and other websites. A week later, she and three others took a road trip to eastern Kentucky to get a first-hand understanding of the situation.

"I used the Kentucky Gazeteer maps,â€ Janice explained. "Those maps have shaded gray areas that are labeled ‘altered terrain.’ We figured those would be areas where there had been a lot of mining. Then we looked those areas up on Google Earth and headed out to find them.â€

Janice’s carload traveled widely in and around Hazard.  "Of course some areas were blocked off and it was hard to get up on some sites. We followed trucks loaded with coal and several trucks filled with nitrogen. We learned that the nitrogen is not used for fertilizer. It is used for explosives.â€

"We followed a steep mountain road that seemed likely to lead to one of the sites of gazetteer's 'altered terrain'. Suddenly the steep road leveled out. We were on a high plateau chopped out of the surrounding mountain horizon. On one side of the road stood a high wall surrounding something like a country club or gated clubhouse. Beyond that lay an enormous warehouse and gigantic lumber yard with thousands of huge trees lined up as logs. We were a bit surprised to see the lumber yard because we had read that many of the big trees are never harvested but pushed off the mountains to end up in the streams or as land fill. But we have also heard that some of the flatted areas have been finished for "show" while many others have not.

"On the other side of that same road was a lone, newly-built mansion-sized house in the middle of a barren field. Then we climbed over the top of an odd embankment which was next to the road and above the field. From the top we could look down into a huge, black pond banked entirely by shale, gravel, and dirt. We climbed down the slippery loose-packed wall to look at the oily water. A black scum coated the edge. I assumed this was what is called a "slurry pond"--a toxic chemical residue mixed with water and coal. It struck me as the hidden price tag for the display of wealth just beyond the embankment.â€

Janice and her companions talked with many people along the way, including a number who believed that mountaintop removal mining is necessary and good for the local economy. "It is not a simple issue,â€ she noted.

"We met one very personable fellow whose father had been killed in a mine accident. He had leased some land to a coal company to be strip-mined, and was enthusiastic about the possibility of planting chestnut trees when the mining was finished. He told us the trees could grow in gravel, without any soil, as long as they had water. It wasn’t clear where the water was going to come from.â€

"I do think differently about water after that trip. Our neighbors in Louisville and many other communities get their drinking water from the Ohio River, which is fed by the Big Sandy River and the Kentucky River where all that mining is taking place. All the sediment and pollution we saw flows downstream.â€

One week after her visit to eastern Kentucky, and two weeks after learning about KFTC for the first time, Janice joined with 1,200 others at the I Love Mountains Rally in Frankfort.

Janice acknowledged that, as a resident of Indiana, the issue of mountaintop removal coal mining isn’t her most pressing concern. But, she added, "Now my antennae are up. It doesn't matter that I left the mountains of Barbourville, KY when I was five and have rarely been back, or that I have never lived in West Virginia or Virginia. Kentucky's problem is ours. Your air, your trees, your streams, your natural beauty, and your coal are resources for both our states, our country and this our only planet. Your water is us!â€

Welcome to membership in KFTC, Janice! We are glad to have your support and involvement. And thanks for the good conversation.

Anyone reading this blog entry can help KFTC raise some funds AND have great conversations with terrific people like Janice. Please contact your local KFTC office to volunteer to make phone calls over the next 10 days. Our goal is to have a good conversation with every person on our mailing list, and encourage members to renew their dues or make a special donation at this time. It’s fun, and these calls help ensure that KFTC has the resources we need to keep building momentum for social justice in Kentucky.

                                                           — Lisa Abbott