Thanks for posting this, Dave. If my heart had not been broken long ago by the continued rape and pillage of my beloved homeland and it's people, this would be enough to do it.

Environmental politics and policies in West Virginia have long been controlled by the coal interests. Environmental regulations related to mining have never been enforced there, regardless of the mining method. First, our beautiful mountain streams were turned red and dead by acid run-off from deep mines. then the soil and the hardwood forests on the sides of those ancient, ancient hills were stripped away, Reclamation usually consisted of leaving a flat shelf planted with some non-native cover such as crown vetch. Flooding woes started increasing then. Mind you, one to two generations before the strip mines, large, out-of-state timber concerns has already pillaged the mountainsides, leaving behind mudclogged streams from run-off of the topsoil once the steep slopes had been clearcut. The streams and the forests recovered just in time for it to happen again with the strip mining.

But mountain top removal is by far the most massively destructive practice to date. The interview really does not convey the devasting impact of the repeated flashflooding that once was a rare occurrence. Entire communities have been swept away in recent years in the southern coalfields. Hearts start pounding at the prediction of heavy rain.

Pretty much all of West Virginia is a land of low, rugged mountains, into which narrow hollows (hollers is what we calls 'em)have been cut by mountain creeks and streams. The main hollers can run for miles between parallel ridges, intersected by countless, smaller branch hollers that delve back further into the mountains. Many small communities dot these hollers, the houses strung out along the narrow valleys like beads on a necklace. Many, if not most of them started out as coal camps owned by the coal companies. Typically, the creek will run along the very base of one ridge. On the opposite bank there will be a narrow strip of 'bottom land' taken up by the narrow ribbon of the asphault road, then a bit of high ground above the flood plain where the houses are built, then, the abrupt, steep incline of the opposing ridge. There can be a good bit of variability in the width of these hollers, but all are narrow, and many are no more than 50 yards wide from the base of one ridge to the other. With the trees and soil gone, and the streams and side branches buried in the rubble that used to be the top of the mountains, the water comes up fast, or roars down the creeks in flash floods remiscent of the arroyos in the desert canyons of the West. Only this isn't desert.

I used to think I would move back to those hills someday. My mother, who still lives there, would exclaim "don't you dare even think of it!" The number of expat. hillbillies living where I do has steadily increased over the past several years. Like me, few of them now have any intention of returning. There is no longer anything there for us, except our hearts.