Our Roots Run Deep as Ironweed: Appalachian Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice

Introduction

Introduction It’s not just what I choose to do, it’s also, I think, what I have to do. I’ve always been a very fierce protector of my kids, and I’m still doing that. I’m still protecting what I have left. . . . Not only [my house and land], but the mountain behind it and the environment and the wildlife and the vegetation. . . . The majority of the Appalachian women that I know were born fighting and protecting. —lorelei scarboro, 2008 People say that ironweed is the symbol for Appalachian women. You know that tall purple flower that’s all over the mountains at the end of summer? Have you ever tried to pull it out of the ground? It’s called ironweed because its roots won’t budge. That’s like Appalachian women—their roots are deep and strong in these mountains, and they will fight to stay put. —Judy bonds, 2006 Black coal dust rains down on a town, destroying property values as well as residents’ lungs. A house—with a family inside—is nearly washed away by a flash flood caused by the presence of a mountaintop-removal mine. A breach in an underground coal waste injection site pollutes the well water of an entire community, and years pass before the toxic contamination is discovered. These disastrous events are among the countless environmental injustices that threaten the health and safety of thousands of Central Appalachian residents. Considered by many to serve as a “sacrifice zone” for cheap energy (Fox 1999; Scott 2010; Bell [forthcoming]), the Central Appalachian region1 has suffered great ecological, economic, and social ruin from increasingly destructive methods of coal extraction and processing.2 The tremendous environmental burdens the people of Central Appalachia have been forced to bear is part of a global pattern of inequality. Not all people share the weight of the world’s environmental hazards and pollutants equally; those with the least political and economic power—people of color, low-income communities, and residents of the global South—bear a disproportionate share of the waste, pollution, and environmental destruction created by society (Bullard 1990; Bullard et al. 2007; Masterson-Allen and Brown 1990; Čapek 1993; Pellow 2004; Pellow 2007; Faber 2008; Faber 2009). Coal is cheap, but only because the costs of energy production are externalized onto the natural environment and society in the form of pollution , destruction of the land, and limited economic opportunities. The injustices in Central Appalachia have not gone without resistance, however; over the past decade, this region has become the epicenter of a grassroots struggle for human rights and environmental justice,3 a struggle that has largely been initiated, led, and sustained by working-class women. This book is about some of those powerful, dedicated, tenacious individuals. Preserving Women’s Place in the History of the Central Appalachian Environmental Justice Movement While there are notable local men who have dedicated themselves to the environmental justice movement in Central Appalachia (such as Chuck Nelson, Ed Wiley, Bo Webb, and the late Larry Gibson), it is women who overwhelmingly make up the leadership and membership of local, grassroots citizen involvement (Bell 2010; Bell and Braun 2010). Maria Gunnoe, Patty Sebok, Maria Lambert, Teri Blanton, Pauline Canterberry, Mary Miller, Joan Linville, Donetta Blankenship, Lorelei Scarboro, Donna Branham, Debbie Jarrell, and the late Judy Bonds4 are just a few of the local women in Central Appalachia who have stood up and demanded that their children, their communities, their land, and their culture be protected from the costs of irresponsible mining practices. The high proportion of women activists in this movement is not atypical among environmental justice groups across the United States. Many scholars have found that while women as a whole have lower rates of participation than men in the mainstream environmental movement (Brown and Ferguson 1995; Mohai 1992), women “are heavily represented in both the leadership and the membership” of environmental justice organizations, representing upwards of 70 percent of the activists in local and state organizations that are fighting such hazards as chemical plants, toxic waste dumps, and nuclear facilities (Brown and Ferguson 1995, 148–50; Kaplan 1997; Naples 1998; Cable 1992). 2 introduction Despite the substantial literature on women’s central role in environmental justice struggles throughout the United States, women’s leadership and activism in the Central Appalachian movement has not been adequately acknowledged or fully examined.5 One of the purposes of this book...