Standing Our Ground: Women, Environmental Justice, and the Fight to End Mountaintop Removal

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, Frontispiece

StandingOurGround Ohio University Press Series in Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Appalachia Series Editor: Marie Tedesco Memphis Tennessee Garrison: The Remarkable Story of a Black Appalachian Woman, edited by Ancella R. Bickley and Lynda Ann Ewen The Tangled Roots of Feminism, Environmentalism, and Appalachian Literature, by Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt Red, White, Black, and Blue: A Dual Memoir of Race and Class in Appalachia, by William R. Drennen Jr. and Kojo (William T.) Jones Jr., edited by Dolores M. Johnson Beyond Hill and Hollow: Original Readings in Appalachian Women’s Studies, edited by Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt Loving Mountains, Loving Men, by Jeff Mann Power in the Blood: A Family Narrative, by Linda Tate Out of the Mountains: Appalachian Stories, by Meredith Sue Willis Negotiating a Perilous Empowerment: Appalachian Women’s Literacies, by Erica Abrams Locklear Standing Our Ground: Women, Environmental Justice, and the Fight to End Mountaintop Removal, by Joyce M. Barry Standing Our Ground Women, Environmental Justice, and the Fight to End Mountaintop Removal Joyce M. Barry ohio university press • athens Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701 ohioswallow.com© 2012 by Ohio University Press All rights reserved To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax). Printed in the United States of America Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper ∞ ™ 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Barry, Joyce M. Standing our ground : women, environmental justice, and the fight to end mountaintop removal / Joyce M. Barry. p. cm. — (Ohio University Press series in race, ethnicity, and gender in Appalachia) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8214-1997-7 (hc : alk.paper) — ISBN 978-0-8214-4410-8 (electronic) 1. Environmental justice—Appalachian Region. 2. Women—Political activity—Appalachian Region. 3. Mountaintop removal mining— Social aspects—Appalachian Region. 4. Landscape protection— Appalachian Region—Citizen participation. 5. Coal mines and mining—Environmental aspects—Appalachian Region. 6. Community activists—Appalachian Region. I. Title. GE235.A13B37 2012 622’.334—dc23 2012027267 For Julia “Judy” Bonds vii You have stolen our land, and used despicable stereotypes of mountain people to justify yourselves to national media. You consigned hundreds of thousands of men and boys to horrible working conditions with great loss of life and limb. You took away freedom and dignity and trampled on civil liberties. You brought violence to bear against people who stood up for their rights. You evicted the widow and orphans from their homes. You polluted our rivers first, then our groundwater. You polluted and corrupted and cheapened the political process in this state, and made a mockery of government by the people. You abandoned our communities without sewage and water systems and left our school systems in poverty. You shifted your tax burden onto the people of this state. You condemned miners to the living death of black lung while denying them just compensation. You destroyed our roads with overloaded coal trucks and bragged publicly about breaking the law. You condemned those counties most dependent on coal to the greatest and most intractable poverty in this state. You filled our rivers with silt and increased the dangers of flooding. You tore families apart. You destroyed the habitat of our native animals. You deny workers the right to organize. You discourage the development of alternative energy sources. You lay off WV deep miners to employ out-of-state strip miners. 27 years ago today, you killed 125 men, women and children on Buffalo Creek and dared to blame it on God. You are flattening our mountains and filling in our hollows, and this is the last evil you will do. —Denise Giardina, Coalfield Justice Rally, February 1999 ...