Yale Students and KFTC Member Filmmakers Fly Over Eastern KY Mine Sites

KFTC member Jim Welch hosted 5 students from Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and 2 KFTC Central Kentucky chapter members to fly over mine sites in Perry and Harlan counties on Friday, March 12, 2010.

The group had passion, cameras, 

                   water and sic sacs. 

They were ready for anything.

The students are studying MTR and had already visited mining areas in Eastern Kentucky on the ground, talking with other KFTC members including Bev May and Rick Handshoe. They were profoundly affected by the people they met and talked with on their trip.

This flyover was the last event they had planned. The students said that seeing MTR from the air helped them "conceptualize the vast level of destruction" in a way that it had been difficult to do from the ground.

When asked if their peers or families knew whether the coal that powered some of their homes came from practices like these in Kentucky - they said no. One wondered if such devastation would be tolerated in the White Mountains, which are located in the northeast U.S. The students plan to present information about MTR to fellow students at Yale and hope to inspire action around the issue.