The West Virginia Turnpike, now part of I-77 & I-64, cuts through the heart of the southern mountains of West Virginia. Before it was brought up to interstate standards (beginning about 1976) it was a two lane road with short truck-passing lanes up the steepest grades. It took about 2 1/2 hours to traverse the 88 miles it ran between Charleston and Princeton. A. James Manchin, a former crackpot WV Secretary of State, referred to it as "that piece of hell that hasn't burned up yet." My Dad, on the other hand, could immediately end complaints about driving the Turnpike with,"If you don't want to drive the Turnpike, you can always take U.S. 119."

What I remember most about Turnpike trips when I was still a girl are two things; One was the wooden coal tipples jutting out near the tops of the hills marking deep mines. Mom would point them out to us, telling us that Granddaddy Cooper (my great grandfather) and Uncle William worked at the tipples when she was a girl. The other memory was of the huge, burning piles of coal slag, the rubble from the deep mines, dumped uncermonously at regular intervals at the heads hollers below the mines. The Turnpike passed right by them. They constantly breathed smoke and fumes. Apparently they could burn for years. There were acres of ghostly gray skeletons of trees on the mountain slopes behind them, slain by the deadly caress of the toxic smoke and fumes that rose from the smoldering coal leavings. Depending on the wind and weather, traffic on the Turnpike would slow to a crawl as cars made their way through the dense shroud of smoke. When we passed by the slag piles at night, I remember being filled with dreadful fascination at the sight of the low flames that flickered over the surface. Environmental protection wasn't even in our West Virginia lexicon in those days, and I had no ecopolitical thoughts about them. I just could see that they were awful. I wondered what it must be like to live in one of those coal camps just down the holler another few hundred yards. I wondered if children were allowed to play outside.

Until the Turnpike was built, the slag piles were "out of sight and out of mind" to anyone not working in a coal mine. I don't know, but can imagine, that the exposure of these noxious mounds to the greater public, (including the many out-of-state travellers who previously had driven around southern WV to get south) was an important first step in bringing public awareness to the environmental and human health problems associated with coal mining in general, and especially with irresponsible practices. It was a long, fierce environmental battle, but eventually the slag piles disappeared.

(When I was little, our driveway, like many others in West Virginia, was gravelled with a pretty rock called 'red dog,' that was the end result of a fully burned-out slag pile. I haven't seen or heard of 'red dog' in many, many years.)

When strip mining really began to expand, the State and the coal industry, having learned from the Turnpike experience, took some pains to keep the strip mines largely out of view from main travel routes. But mountain top removal is not so easy to conceal. I just got back this evening from a trip up the Turnpike to visit my parents. While the full scope of MTR is not visible from the Turnpike, I could definitely get glimpses of some of the sites. I also saw numerous billboards, most of them sponsored by 'Friends of Coal,'and was astounded by the amount of advertising and propaganda the coal industry is paying for on local television.

WVU's season opener against Western Michigan was on the tube when we arrived at my parents. The broadcast featured commentator Don Nehlen, the deified retired WVU football coach who is now a spokesman for Friends of Coal, as well as the current governor, relentlessly sounding their horns for the coal industry. Money talks.

There are a few more jobs and a little less poverty in WV right now as opposed to 2 years ago that can be attributed to Bush's willingness to sacrifice the environment to profits. Make no mistake, the improvement in profits that go into the pockets of the few far outstrips any corresponding improvement in the number of jobs, or in increased wages deriving those profits. Jobs win votes.

Forget Florida. If West Virginia's 5 electorial votes had gone to Gore instead of Bush in 2000, Gore would have been president. 2000 was only the 2nd time since the Great Depression that WV went Republican for a 1st term Republican. Gore lost WV because of his strong environmental stance, and the environmental movement's failure (inability, perhaps) to provide plausible economic alternatives to the environmental destruction caused by both the extraction and the burning of fossil fuels to regions like WV, in particular, and the American people in general.

In general, I think the American people want a cleaner, safer environment. But the American wealthy, and the American middle class (what remains of it) are not willing to give up anything to get that cleaner, safer environment. We want something for nothing. We want others to sacrifice, but are not willing to respond in equal measure. By all means, lobby for protection of the environment. Vote environmental. But if that is all you are willing to do, know that it is not enough. If and when enough of us are willing to radically change our lifestyles, to significantly reduce our expectations about what is an adequate standard of living, to live modestly in very real, tangible ways by choice for the sake of the earth and for others now living as well as for future generations, then, it is possible that the earth and our grandchildren may have a chance.

Janie