Approximately ten cars full of mountain activists from cities all over the state of Virginia drove through what seemed like the only street in the town of Wise, up towards Black Mountain. We first stopped at a site which held the remnants of a house that once belonged to a small family. As Larry Bush, chairman of SAMS (Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards) narrated to the crowd, a young boy had been laying in his bed one night as a dislodged boulder from the coal-mining above plummeted straight through the bedroom wall and into his bed, killing him instantly. This happened about four years ago. No one did anything. Strip-mining operations continued at all hours of the day and night. They declared it an "act of God."
Our caravan, consisting of multiple prii (pl. of prius), amongst other cars, moved on to a site of Mountaintop Removal (MTR) mining. To state it simply, MTR is a process which involves about ten workers who use heavy machinery to blast off the top layers of the mountain, dump it into the valley below, and shovel out the coal. They are expected to restore it to "the approximate original contours" after coal removal.
As we stepped out of our cars and leaned on the guardrail to look beyond at the destroyed mountain range, there were hushed reactions from the crowd. In the distance were tractors and bulldozers moving about like little displaced plastic Fisher-Price toys. Layers and layers of dark brown and black revealed themselves, stripped and bare, open wounds at one time, unsightly scars left behind. This was "approximate original contours?" I thought to myself out loud. No, this was utter perversion of a natural landscape. This was ecological decimation. "This was blasphemy," as my friend Julie, from Immanuel Church on the Hill, turned to me and said.
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