Report from the Floyd Co. Mountain Witness Tour

Susan Williams, Lowell Shepherd and Silas House. Lowell is pointing out where Miller Brother's Coal Company pushed all the trees from off the hillside and burned them. Lowell suspects they used old tires to burn the green trees.

On a hot August afternoon several KFTC members gathered at the Graceway Methodist Church in Maytown to discuss the impacts of surface mining on a couple of Floyd County communities, Wilson Creek of Maytown and the Raccoon area of Hueysville.

However all of the discussion could wait until after a wonderful pot-luck lunch was shared by everyone. After a wonderful lunch that included pork barbecue, garden-fresh tomatoes, a wonderful pasta salad, and homemade gingerbread cake, Maytown resident Beverly May informed participants of the mining planned for Wilson Creek.

Beverly explained how right now residents are taking the "checker board" approach to preventing the mining. They know that no coal company wants to come in and mine 30 acres here and another 40 acres somewhere else, they want at least a few hundred acres. So for right now the main strategy is to keep community members talking and to make sure that everyone doesn't sell or lease their land to the coal companies. "This was why we fought to pass the Broad Form Deed Amendment back in the 80's, now we're making it work for us," said Beverly May.

Then Rick Handshoe told everyone about the effects the active Miller Brother's mine in Raccoon is having on residents that live nearby. He told about how this one mining operation is affecting the headwaters of three major rivers in eastern Kentucky, the Licking River, the Big Sandy River, and soon the Kentucky River.

Beverly May and Clinton Handshoe talking about how the quality of life have been destroyed since they started deep mining next to his home

Rick then went on to talk about how KFTC members have come together to challenge a valley fill proposed on a new amendment applied for by Miller Brother's Coal Company.

After the discussion members went on a driving tour of Wilson Creek where they got to see some old strip mining done before the Broad Form Deed Amendment was passed. But, in general, the creek looked clean with fish and holler looked like a pleasant place to live.

Next tour participants drove to the Raccoon community of Hueysville and visited with KFTC member Lowell Shepherd. He invited people into his home to show them how the floors of his home have started to hump up. Rick said,"My kids would have loved living here because the hills on the floor would be great for matchbox cars."

Then Lowell took everyone up the hill behind his house to show them where Miller Brother's Coal Company has begun work on a valley fill and settlement pond. Lowell told everyone that he signed a lease to let them put the valley fill and settlement pond on his property, but if he'd have known how many problems they were going to cause he never would have let them start that mine. Lowell said, "The worst part is we're experiencing all these problems from blasting and overloaded coal trucks and they haven't even started to mine very close to us. What's going to happen when they start mining down both sides of Route 7 directly behind everyone's homes? What will life be like then?"

The Settlement Pond and proposed valley fill behind Lowell Shepherd's home.

We finished the tour by visiting Clinton Handshoe, Rick's father. He lives near by and has a deep mine entrance about 300 feet from his front door.  That deep mine has destroyed two of his wells along with wells on his daughter property and his neighbor's property. They've all gone for weeks at a time with out having water. And now because of the mining they all have methane gas seeping into their wells. Clinton told about how they had a state inspector come out to see if the level's of methane were dangerous.  The inspector said the level's were to high for his meter, but that was still safe. Then the inspector asked that they not allow anyone to smoke near the well.

For one Saturday afternoon some people got a first hand account of what it's like to live in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky.