Tell it on the mountain

Rick Handshoe

The movement to end mountaintop removal mining is featured this week in a cover story of the LEO, a free weekly newspaper in Louisville. The article, written by Jonathan Meador, can be found here.

The story features Floyd County KFTC member Rick Handshoe.

"I go down in (that valley) to hunt, and there’s nothing there,â€ says Handshoe, adding that because of the contaminated runoff generated by local mountaintop removal mining operations, the water line had to be dismantled, and water is now piped in from elsewhere at a greater overall cost. "Some of the people here, they call people from Louisville and Lexington ‘outsiders,’â€ he says. "But you’ve got a stake in this too. You guys are drinking the water that’s coming from here."

Citizens marching to the Capitol in support of the Stream Saver Bill

It also focuses on the close relationship that Rep. Jim Gooch, chairperson of the House Natural Resources Committee, has to the coal industry, and places responsibility for inaction on the Stream Saver Bill at the feet of Governor Beshear.

"If you wonder why someone in Gooch’s position is allowed to repeatedly kill the routinely unsuccessful Stream Saver Bill — which would significantly reduce the toxic pollution created by surface mining — every time the bill lands in his committee, you don’t have to look much farther than the governor’s mansion."

State Senator Kathy Stein, a key sponsor of the Stream Saver Bill (SB 139), is also quoted:

"They (coalfield legislators) continue to support the coal industry and everything that they say — that coal’s so good for the economy — but if you look at the poverty rates in some of these counties with coal producers, you find it’s not the case. If you’re so damn good for eastern Kentucky, then why does eastern Kentucky end up perpetually one of the poorest regions in the nation?â€

Rep. Yarmuth meeting with coalfield resident and member McKinley Sumner

And the story gives a nod to U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, a primary co-sponsor of the Clean Water Protection Act. He refers to a recent study by Downstream Strategies which notes that coal production in central Appalachia is expected to "decrease by as much as 50% over the next decade while becoming increasingly expensive to mine."

"The report kind of validates what a lot of us have already known,â€ says U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3. "What peripheral evidence has shown is that coal is something any economy cannot depend on. A third of the number of people in coal mining are employed now (compared to) the peak of production.â€