EASTERN KENTUCKIANS GIVE STATE LEGISLATORS A TOUR OF MOUNTAINTOP MINING

EASTERN KENTUCKIANS GIVE STATE LEGISLATORS A TOUR OF MOUNTAINTOP MINING - By Cassondra Kirby
Herald Leader - Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007

MONTGOMERY CREEK --One man held a picture of his two nephews -- ages 3 and 5 -- as he described the thick coal dust that floats from a nearby mountaintop strip mine, coating their toys and their tiny lungs.

Others described heavy blasting that put cracks in the ceilings and foundations of their homes. They spoke of "poisoned" streams no longer inhabited by green moss or salamanders, and wells gone dry because of changes in the ground caused by mountaintop mining. City water is not an option for many who live in hollows deep into the Appalachian Mountains.

But above all yesterday, Eastern Kentuckians told more than a dozen legislators -- who traveled from Frankfort to learn about the effects of mountaintop removal -- what it feels like to be ignored.

"The big coal companies, they don't care about us or these mountains," Truman Hurt, of Perry County, said to members of the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee. "We're not throwaway people. These are not throwaway mountains."

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