A Country Rag
 Appalachian Ecology"The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof." -- Psalm 24:1
Namaste, "I greet the place in you which is of truth, of light and of peace." "I come to this the largest ever global conference facing the greatest global challenge of our time to appeal to you to summon up the highest level of ambition and will.... And I say to this conference: informed by science, moved by conscience, inspired by common purpose we, the leaders of this fragile world, must affirm: we will not condemn millions to injustice without remedy, to sorrow without hope, to deprivation without end.... Let us demonstrate a strength of resolve equal to the greatness of our cause. And let us prove today and tomorrow the enduring truth that is more telling than any passing setback: that what we can achieve together is far greater than whatever we can achieve unilaterally and alone. In these few days in Copenhagen, which will be blessed or blamed for generations to come, we cannot permit the politics of narrow interest to prevent a policy for human survival. Because for all of us and for our children there is no greater national interest than the common future of this planet." -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, 12/17/09, Copenhagen Climate Summit
Home-Coming (1946)And I’ve come back to you, Mountain Earth — Come to laugh And sorrow And sing — To dig my songs up From your soil And spin a melody Of corn blades, Top-fodder, Crab-grass, And a clean-plowed furrow. I’ve come to sing and grope — With a people who know Deep songs, Who stumble up A long crooked road.... I’ve come because Your great silent agony Echoed everywhere And the weary foot-steps Of my old Dad Still sound upon the mountain Where his sweat dripped down To water your dirt....-- Rev. Dr. Don West
If you've never seen a lovely, healthy mountain top denuded and destroyed, the film below is a sad introduction to its innards exposed and wrenched away. Care for our HealthAppalachia is an area traditionally restricted economically and by some isolation from broadly accessible physical and, increasingly, environmental wholesomeness. That historical reality is exacerbated now by an effectual unemployment rate of around 17 percent and many underemployed and minimally paid without employer-provided insurance benefits.Some recent articles and broadcasts nationwide expressing a fear of "death panels" in proposed federal health care legislation fail to acknowledge that, just because a procedure or test isn't approved by an insurance carrier, that doesn't mean the individual can't acquire it on his or her own, if so chosen as necessary or urgent and personal resources are available for it. Tens of millions of uninsured Americans -- and Appalachia is a prime example of this -- have been facing "death panels" of hard choices between, for instance, food and a doctor's visit or medication for decades, centuries really. Perhaps a little empathy for the circumstances they've lived in and dealt with daily for themselves and their children is in order now in considering possibilities that might benefit all of our citizens, not just ones economically advantaged at any particular moment or era. Most of us have ups and downs in that arena and today's business manager and owner can be tomorrow's homeless person sleeping in a car or shelter, perhaps with a family of small children also, and visa versa. The more we depend, however, on pharmaceuticals and mainstream medical practice, the more we become dependent upon them until we see, obviously, no alternative or choice but to proceed in that direction. That isn't true, though. Most bodies have pretty formidable systems, if healthy and encouraged, for building and having defenses against various biological threats. They become overwhelmed and increasingly inoperable, unfortunately, under a withering deluge of foreign, manmade chemicals where elements natural to our environment and bodies might be more appropriately helpful in keeping us physically strong and up-to-date in resistences. Doing our intelligent and educated best, as our foreparents did and had to do, in practical care -- a situation taken for granted by prior generations as necessary and efficacious -- is a favor we can do for ourselves in accepting as much responsibility as possible for our own health and those personal choices and decisions. There are many books, magazines, websites and wholistic shops, seminars and commercial therapies readily available and easily accessible in cutting back on mainstream medical expense personally and nationally. Through advertising and extraordinarily well-funded lobbying we have become nearly addicted to one version and view of health care that provides exorbitant profits in some cases for its purveyors -- who do prey on fear and raising fright, "scare tactics" -- that might better be addressed initially by independent study, research and tried-and-true "home remedies," including honest prayer for ourselves and others experiencing extreme discomfort, pain, distention, anxiety and confoundment mental and physical from those in our relatively rich nation to others abandoned en masse in the wilds from desert to jungle worldwide without hope of relief or release except by God. Happy holy days. -- jH
Video below records a populous West Virginia citizen protest -- complete with native speakers, bluegrass musicians and Uncle Sam on stilts -- against coal mining practices that harm the environmental health of eloquently brave and afflicted residents. Jewell Ridge Coal (Jeni & Billy) perform -- for instance to an attentive and enthusiastic crowd during Jonesborough TN's 2009 MOTS season -- oustandingly and evocatively excellent tunes about Appalachia and coal, particularly (e.g. Tar Paper Shack) that "will draw you into captivating narratives of heartache and hard living, of true life blues and unexpected grace. Images of coal & crowns, trash & trailers, and glass and gasoline recur, and Jesus and the Great Speckled Bird are never far off."
"Oh, Mother Earth/
I wonder what's gonna happen/
to Mother Earth/
Ah... ah... ah... Mother Earth/
We better have a little mercy/
On Mother Earth/
When Mother Earth is talkin'/
Better listen carefully/
She say she's so disheartened/
'Bout the things she sees/
She says it's all so crazy/
Just so much misery/
She says I can't help but wonder/
Wonder the reason why/
You've poisoned my waters/
and blackened my sky/
Put a hole in my soul/
You sho nuff tryin' to drain me dry/
You done took me for granted/
Ah you took me in vain/
Yes you took my good nature/
for your fortune and fame/
You sho nuff took me wrong/
There's no one but yourself to blame/
Don't like your double talk/
You call it your liberty/
Then you tear away my cover/
Exposing me/
My Garden of Eden/
And all my greenery/
You beached all my birds/
And bagged all my bees/
You beat my poor buffalo/
Right on down to his knees/
You gave 'em no mercy/
I gave you amnesty/
Now I'm feelin' mighty angry/
Used and abused/
Downright mistreated/
Battered and bruised/
So people get ready/
Best be on your P's and Q's/
Cause I'm gon' rain on and thunder/
Gon' put mud in the streets/
Gon' be huffin' and puffin'/
You gon' be catchin my heat/
Rumblin' and tumblin'/
Right on up under yo feet/
Now there won't be no prologue/
This act it won't be televised/
No it won't be mistaken/
As an exercise/
I'm gon' be kickin' up a storm/
It's truly gon' be electrifying"
Video above Jeni and Billy with the sacred harp (human voice) song "Panting for Heaven"
Graphic below: Forest Path, watercolor by Vera Tracy, Jonesborough TN 
Walk The LandPeople who don't spend much time amidst the natural world by choice, time or location tend to think of it as pretty static, like a landscape painting or a snapshot. In fact, to the contrary it's ever-changing in myriad ways and on tiny to grand scales. Scents in the air blown by blooms and animals on the soft waves of warm breeze to fierce wind raging in from storm arriving or past meander and weave through each other. Leaves and grasses are not green but shades in between brown and near-blue of form straightly slender to mottled and chunky. They're seldom still, perhaps line dancing in some semblance of symmetry, brushed by birds or ground and tree fur, dewed by the moon, chilled by night. Waters in pools rarely left stagnant, creeks in the narrow thrush and rush of travel to widening rivers, rivulets running and meeting to join with the sea change similarly in shape, shade and temperance, fed by our sky canopy of dynamic currents calmly colliding or conflicting to sudden stark cracks of electrons mid-air to ground, zigzagged and intermittent unpredicatably. Earth and her waters resound, rebound to all, resplendently shining or drowned temporarily, as do her creatures caught or hidden in sense of tumult unbidden on every hand. Beings fortunate to live or visit lands unmarred marvel and delight where her mysteries abound, bright and fog-strewn, for wondrous knowing to be shared or not as secrets may be with those who choose more seemingly safe, reliable and sedentary modes of leisure and life. But you have to be there, open to her whispers and chants, shouts and gleamings to glean the full meaning personally. She speaks differently to each one from the lull of early evening to the sun's mighty roar at rising. From small sheltered park to daunting wilderness vastly, any of us of any age and ability can grasp a glimpse at least of her mildness, her fury, her wildness, her messaging. Snow and ice can't stop or delay her movings and mournings, her moments of heaving, churning, and her creatures burrowed or borne away by ancient instinct till the alluring array and cheer of spring. We are made by our Creator to walk on the land and know it as well as the divine hand, however we're able and can. Visit a tree or a brook on some lonely, abandoned stand and you'll hear The Word in a spray of foam from rock, the breeze that leaves too suddenly, a hint of eternal home, and maybe the cookie-crumb path leading and leaning to it, how to survive the gales and wails on our way that fit us for the journey. Because it's true: Only the fittest survive to find and stay in New Jerusalem spiritually and spatially. We're not natural beasts but God's own: wo/men with sentient minds, hearts, spirits and souls -- and free will to choose in our time here which way we will go. -- jH
"On Tuesday, Duke Energy and the North Carolina Utility Commission reached a preliminary settlement on Duke’s request for a substantial rate increase on residential and commercial utilities. The proposed agreement would cut Duke’s original request of a 13% residential rate increase to around 7%, a hike which would phase in over a two year period, starting with a 4.3% increase in January, 2010. The proposed agreement would reduce Duke’s expected profit increase from $496 million to $315 million.... Just the day before, the Utilities Commission held the last in a string of public hearings in which Duke Energy customers were able to make public comments concerning the hike. According to Commission Chairman Edward Finley, Jr., thousands of emails, phone calls and letters had also poured in opposing the increase. During yesterday’s hearing, over a dozen residents spoke out against the rate hike, citing health concerns, economy, and the lack of need for the Cliffside coal-fired power plant expansion. Several speakers chastised Duke Energy for its failure to move towards more renewable energy. Elizabeth Goyer, a UNC Asheville environmental studies student, noted that while the utility claims to be pushing for more renewable sources, only about 3% of Duke’s electricity comes from alternates to coal.... Zell McGee, a North Carolina native and a medical expert who taught for years in Utah, testified about known health effects of coal-fired power plants. 'Healthcare costs are translated to the customers,' he said, further increasing their financial burden beyond the rate increase. He compared rate payers to prey and Duke Energy to predators, and said that the Commission needed to work harder to 'encourage harmony between utility companies and their customers.' A representative of the North Carolina Conservation Network delivered a petition signed by over 1500 citizens asking that the rate hike request be rejected, and an attorney with the North Carolina Justice Center, testified on behalf of the disadvantaged residents of the state, noting that of the 1.3 million poor people currently living in North Carolina, none of them could afford to pay for the increase, either monetarily or physically. 'One thing that has not been mentioned today,' Ripley said, 'is the extensive research that has been done to show correlations between energy costs and the health of our children and of our poor elderly people in this state.' Ripley elaborated by explaining that increased external costs means less money to spend on food, which leads to malnutrition and poor health...." -- Jamie in Appalachian Voices 
Ruminations and RamificationsIf you destroy mountaintops forever, pollute streams and aquifers, poison humans and fish and mammals, spew rubble over tender living land, are you "productive" in the true sense and meaning of the word? For all that, you have to show blind allegiance to the dwindling and dirty resource of coal, hard cash, and your arse in the face of the future, the children left shaking and shorn wishing perhaps that you and they had never been born to see and know the wake of tremulous terror victim and predator face. Our race and all lifeforms depend on a healthily nurtured Earth and its biosystems. We can't live in space. It's here or nowhere and now or never. And, as ever, it's up to us -- the highest link in the food chain -- to save ourselves and the rest or die in a mass grave amidst a populous sky, unknown and unremarked, unremembered, unmissed. And perhaps some far-off entity one aeon will hiss, "Ack. They weren't really sentient like us, you know -- just moles, maggots, and beasts." And a few telepathics may at last engrave the names of a desecrated planet's Crowded Execution Officials, its CEOs, rotted and rotten in the dust. This is how it was. -- jH
Video above "Amazing Grace" in Tsa-la-gi, native language of the Cherokee Nation.
"Heaven and Earth"Boohoo to you too.You're just a nightmare we all encountered too close up and personally without law or morality, decency or humanity, truth or sanity, beasts if ever there were any in the forms of wo/man. The multitude, the many lost in your houses of sand with savagery at every hand just as scriptures say passing away.
"Truly I say to you, Till heaven and earth come to an end, not the smallest letter or part of a letter will in any way be taken from the law, till all things are done." -- Jesus (Matthew 5:16), Bible in Basic English  
"Multibillion-dollar clean coal projects in West Virginia, Texas and Alabama are getting $979 million in federal stimulus funding, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Friday. The money will go toward retrofitting existing coal-fired power plants owned by American Electric Power, Southern Co. and Summit Texas Clean Energy to capture and store carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas linked to climate change. The Energy Department is aiming to have the technology available commercially -- and to share with other big coal-using countries -- in eight to 10 years. 'Coal is a very important mix of our power. It generates over 50 percent of our electricity. The United States has 25 percent of the entire coal reserves in the world,' Chu said. 'We don't plan to turn our back on coal. Neither will China. Neither will India.'..." -- News Runner, 12/5/09
Video below, Lightnin' Charlie and his wife Beth, East Tennessee Graphic below: photo by Charles Dyer, Kingsport TN, of Roan Mountain TN-NC
"Coal has come a long way with the passage of clean air and water acts. It isn't as opponents portray it on television."
"Stay at a magnificent hotel, play a round of golf, fish a beautiful lake, or waste the day away in one of our parks. Each of these is a result of the reclamation efforts which are part of mountaintop removal." For those who question the facts, a drive along polluted Appalachian rivers, aquifers and streams and conversations with residents affected without help or concern throughout Appalachian coal country by our just past Administration and corporate owners most particularly both enlightens and saddens. There are also reputable and incontravertible scientific assessments and studies easily accessible on-line and through snailmail by federal, state and private agencies devoted to environmental sanity and healthful good that document and delineate all-around damage in great detail, as well as historically reliable media investigations of criminal negligence such as one recently reported through the New York Times and National Public Radio, and quarterly in the freely-distributed journal Appalachian Voices. Additionally, there are numerous famous and not scholarly books, autobiographies, novels and centuries of regional folk songs describing conditions and consequences of coal extraction without thoughtful diligence for workers, communities and environmental atmosphere. "And God called the land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas, and God saw that it was good." -- Genesis 1:10. As our planet's earliest inhabitants, sustainingly and reverently integrated into their and our home, knew well and honored, we are all just caretakers passing through. "Earth doesn't belong to us. It is in our keeping for the use and enjoyment of future generations." And we are held to be the keepers of our neighbors, especially the disabled and the poor. "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me." -- Jesus, Matthew 25:45. The Godly and the Christian will see through vacuous excuses and vapid alibis for continuing calamity in our biosphere, accept reasonable and effective alternatives, and support essential remediation efforts for people and planet. -- jH
 "Where Coal Lies" Play a sad song of love and loss and heartache, broken dreams and lives, homes tossed aside by a storm in the turbulent seas of law and policy without a redeeming God. Each one's alone -- bombing women, raping children, filling the land with diseased bodies, screams, toxic wastes and streams of untruth, rubble-strewn, running brain-dead over cold stones. Views from mountain vales aren't so gilded or perfect-pretty, littered as they are in impoverishment without sight or pity. Folks who can't drink water from their own wells and creeks can't afford extravagances of commercial mountaintop retreats, and they aren't on any guided tours wealthy bypassers might expense. Unleashed leaches gulp history's blood without conscience, care, or consciousness of cost until Earth is doomed, Gaia heaves her last hurrah, and breathes no longer. We have enough elegant hotels and fields for golfing, but God isn't making mountaintops here anymore.  "It only take one push of a plunger to blow a mountain away and destroy a whole community." -- Pete Ramey, Wise County VA
"In southwest Virginia, the communities of Appalachia and Andover are
threatened by a proposed mountaintop removal project on Ison Rock Ridge." "The dream of the mountains' struggle, the dream of simplicity and of justice, like so many other repressed visions, is, we believe, the voice of the Lord among us." -- Catholic Commmitte of Appalachia in This Land is Home To Me, 1975
"On Wednesday April 2, 2008 the Tennessee Scenic Vistas Protection Act was defeated in the House Environment subcommittee.... The Christian community was the main mobilization behind this bill -- not the enviros. Now they are totally behind it and have added to their numbers. Next time the enviros will be in it -- with the religious and much of the political and media community of Tennessee. Everyone who fought for the bill walked away ten times stronger and more powerful. Only the strip mining corporations got status quo...." The "Building A New World" Conference featuring "dozens of progressive speakers on the environmental, global warming, the economy, economic democracy, healthcare, civil liberties, media control, women's liberation, etc" will be held May 22-25, 2008, at Radford University, Radford VA
 "... Lady, lady with your torch held high, your flame is burning low/ You said you'd harbor us safe in your arms, oh why did you let us go?/ They've taken your name and left a hollow frame where liberty once stood/ They say it's every man for himself now, to hell with the common good/ [chorus] America the beautiful, America the strong/ We are the dispossessed, the long oppressed/ Why do you do us wrong?/ America, the land of the free, you've forgotten we're your blood/ But we will join together one by one until a drop becomes a flood/ Who’s gonna save you now, I ask, from the shame of all your lies?/ You say you speak the word of god, but it’s just hatred in disguise/ We used to be a beacon of hope shining across the sea/ But we shed the blood of the innocent now in the name of democracy/ ...[last chorus] America the beautiful, do you hear our song?/ We are the dispossessed, the long oppressed/ Why do you do us wrong?/ America, the land of the free, you've forgotten we're your blood/ But we'll join together one by one until a drop becomes a flood" -- Until A Drop Becomes A Flood by Grace Family Music, Leela and Ellie Grace
"The spiritual community has 'an inherent covenental responsibility' to care for the earth." -- Rabbi Ben Romer, Congregation of Or Ami, Richmond VA, at a gathering of Virginia faith leaders opposing the Dominion plant
"[We must] live out moral responsibility to protect the earth for our children and future generations. We also are called to serve and protect the poor and the helpless and 'to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.' ... Those who suffer the most ... are the very people whom we have been instructed to protect: the least among us...."
"Dominion continues to call this [non-carbon capture compatible power plant] a 'clean coal plant,' which is like saying 'healthy cigarettes'."
"End Mountaintop Removal" -- I Love Mountains There was an April 5th Blessing of the Mountains organized by Christians for the Mountains calling on the public "to join prayers for Divine intervention to counter the devastation of mountaintop removal."
"[LEAF has been organized] to bring the issue of mountaintop removal to the attention of East Tennessee's Christian communities and encourage them to address the environmental destruction and economic injustice this practice inflicts on the land and people of Appalachia."
 Restoring Eden is a group of young evangelicals organized to work for a sustainable environment.
"According to the Jewish and Christian traditions, the primary vocation to which humans are called is to be stewards of, and participants in, God's love for this magnificent, beautiful and resourceful creation." Supporting wilderness designation for Monongehela National Forest Rev. Dennis Sparks, Executive Director of the WV Council of Churches, spoke before the United States Congress
The UMWA, WV legislature, and many other groups prevailed recently, over intense lobbying by coal companies wanting to use the land for mountaintop removal, with a unanimous resolution by the WV House of Delegates for preservation of 1600 acres of the Blair Mountain Battlefield as a National Historic Site. There, in 1920-21, miners were evicted and two murdered, along with the town mayor and Police Chief Sid Hatfield, during an uprising of around 10,000 miners armed with rifles and pistols attacked by company detectives with machine guns and canons. The federal government intervened with troops, about 500 of the organizers were tried for treason and murder near Harpers Ferry, and most were acquited with the support of townspeople whom they'd befriended, with the rest serving time until at most 1925, while in 1933 FDR legalized union activities nationally.
"What people needed to understand was that there had always been something wrong with an industry that 'produced a mint of wealth and forced its employees to live in poverty'."
 "The Appalachian Mountains are among the most beautiful places on earth. They are our home, our heritage, and our way of life. They are our children's inheritance. But their future cannot be taken for granted. Today, the Appalachian Mountains suffer from the worst air quality, the most unsustainable logging, and the most irresponsible mining in the nation. Every day, more of our streams, forests and mountains are degraded and lost forever." -- Appalachian Voices "Baptists have a moral responsibility to combat climate change." -- Southern Baptist Convention, Nashville TN, 3/08
"The mountains of rural Appalachia are among the most biodiverse ecosystem in the world. Our viable economic options for individuals and for local communities are limitless. Our vision is that Appalachia, and specifically the coalfields of Central Appalachia, needs community-based, diversified and appropriate economic development that sustains both the culture and the environment of the mountains." -- Creative Economy Conference, Southwest Virginia r-H Educational Center, Abingdon VA, September 19-21, 2008 Goals:  "Mountains in the holy scriptures: Psalm 104:5; Psalm 24:1; Nahum 1:15; Exodus 24:12; Matthew 5:1-3; Micah 4:2; Matthew 17:1-4; Mark 6:46; Luke 9:28; John 6:15; Numbers 35:34; Exodus 19:23; Isaiah 25:10" -- LEAF
"... practices which would not be acceptable for a third world country are somehow considered acceptable in Appalachia.... It's as if corporations feel entitled to come to Appalachia, take our land, clear-cut our forests, bring all the toxic industries to our region, strip mine, and in general act as if they are the colonialist British come to occupy our land.... Any region or people portrayed negatively are easier to exploit.... Portraying the people of Appalachia as stupid, ignorant, and inbred somehow makes it acceptable to turn streams bright orange and to blow up entire mountains and destroy highland watersheds forever.... The reality is that Appalachia has a long and proud history of political thought, resistance to power, art, craft, discourse, and music that is not accurately portrayed by the mass media.... This region was instrumental in the abolishionist movement, and played a large part in the Underground Railroad.... The coal miners of Appalachia were some of the first to strike and demand humane living conditions. Direct action and organizing models from the grassroots union organizing in Appalqachia continue to influence the tactics used by other grassroots movements in America today...."
"... we painted up our faces and donned our funny clothes/ played kazoos and banjos, trumpets and trombones/ we told jokes and laughed and played and danced around/ identified by a colorful sign that said the 'coup clutz clowns'/ well them nazis and them KKK, they shout and prance around/ in their funny pointy dunce hats and their pretty long white gowns/ but we run 'em out of town, no they can't stand up to clowns/ ..."
"But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his counsel: for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor." -- Micah 4:12 Video above "Rocky Top Tennessee," the people's favorite heritage song
|
"... For centuries the magic and mystery of Appalachia's landscape has inspired artists and authors. The deep greens and heavy mists of the mountains lend themselves to breaktaking descriptions, expressed in words, paints and ... in cinematography...." -- Julie Johnson, 
"The Obama administration announced a plan today for curbing the use of streamlined federal permitting for 
"A majority of Americans support clean energy. But powerful special interests are blocking our path, spending millions to protect the status quo." -- 
"[former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al] 
"... Italian and Norwegian oil engineers and geologists have arrived in Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania to learn how to extract gas from layers of a black rock called shale. Companies are leasing huge tracts of land across Europe for exploration. And oil executives are gathering rocks and scrutinizing Asian and North African geological maps in search of other fields. The global drilling rush is still in its early stages. But energy analysts are already predicting that shale could reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas. They said they believed that gas reserves in many countries could increase over the next two decades, comparable with the 40 percent increase in the United States in recent years.... More extensive use of natural gas could aid in reducing global warming, because gas produces fewer emissions of greenhouse gases than either oil or coal...." -- Clifford Krauss in New Way to Tap Gas May Expand Global Supplies, 
"... A massive spill at a [TVA] power plant near Knoxville [
"... The waste from burning coal is packed with heavy metals such as arsenic, which causes cancer. Around the country, about 600 landfills and surface ponds are used to store leftover contaminated coal waste. When they break or leak, communities face the risk of contaminated farmland, wildlife and drinking water. And the coal ash stored in unlined landfills in communities all across the country -- and around the world -- can leach into drinking water supplies. Every year, coal-fired power plants in the U.S. produce about 130 million tons of contaminated waste, which we know poses significant health risks. In fact, people living near unlined coal ash impoundments have as much as a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer from drinking water contaminated by arsenic leaking from the sites, according to studies by the 
"It's been called the Exxon Valdez of coal ash—a wakeup call for a fossil fuel industry. But the recent toxic ash spill in Tennessee is greater in scope than the 1989 oil spill, and despite what some conservationists are calling very real threats, the ash disaster has so far inspired apparently little concern for local wildlife. On December 22 a billion gallons of poisonous sludge—largely coal ash, a byproduct of coal burning—broke through an earthen dike at the Kingston Fossil Plant. The torrent half-buried area homes and elevated long-running health concerns over heavy metals in the ash. Those worries, experts say, are not limited to human health. In addition to the animals killed by the initial spill, wildlife may be threatened for years by the trace amounts of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, thallium, and other toxins in the coal ash...." -- Kelly Hearn in Giant Toxic Coal Ash Spill Threatens Animals, 
"At about 1 a.m. last Dec. 22, James Schean awoke with a start. He heard what sounded like a furious thunderclap and a staccato of snapping trees. Then his house shuddered and heaved. Swept up by some mighty force, it tore clear of its foundation and rumbled off like a derailed freight car. 'I could hear everything breaking," he says, "the rafters cracking, Sheetrock falling off, the furniture getting twisted and moved, all the pictures falling off the walls, glass breaking everywhere.' Amid the upheaval, the power had been knocked out. He groped frantically in the dark for his pants, coat, and work boots, which he'd laid out beside his bed, and struggled to get them on. When the house finally stopped moving, everything went silent.... As Schean soon learned, the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant had experienced a catastrophic failure.... On that December night, the dike surrounding the mound collapsed, unleashing a tsunami that coated 300 acres of gorgeous countryside and waterways with 1 billion gallons of gray sludge. The wall of ash surged with such ferocity that it destroyed three homes, including Schean's, which it carried about 40 feet and slammed against that embankment.... When the ash finally settled, it looked 'like the surface of the moon, all gray and craters and mounds,' says Janice James, who owned one of the other destroyed homes and also managed to escape. "It was the saddest thing I've ever seen.'... Yet the Kingston disaster had only begun to wreak its havoc. The largest industrial spill in U.S. history, it has created an environmental and engineering nightmare. The cleanup effort, which the Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing, could cost as much as $1 billion (though estimates continue to climb) and take years to complete. Meanwhile, the released ash—which is packed with toxins like arsenic, lead, and selenium—threatens to poison the air and water...." -- Arian Campo-Flores in Toxic Tsunami, 
Unattributed text and graphics c. A Country Rag, Inc. and Jeannette Harris, Jonesborough, TN, 2008, 2009, 2010. All rights reserved.