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Biographies
Dave Cooper is a resident of Lexington, Kentucky. After 20 years working as a mechanical engineer in various industries, most recently at the 3M plant in Kentucky that makes Post-it notes, he decided to devote his full attention to environmental issues after seeing a mountaintop removal mine on Kayford Mountain, West Virginia.
He is a member of the Sierra Club and Mountain Justice, and worked for a year as a coalfield organizer for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC). He is currently on a national speaking tour to educate communities across America about Mountaintop Removal. |
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Larry Gibson, of Kayford Mountain, West Virginia has fought for over 15 years to save Kayford Mountain and his family cemetery on top of the mountain from mountaintop removal. His efforts to save the mountain have been chronicled by ABC's Nightline, 20/20, the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Company, as well as in US News & World Report, the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and many more.
He has spoken at countless college campuses about mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia. He is President of the Stanley Heirs Foundation and works as a volunteer for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition in Huntington, West Virginia. |
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Julia "Judy" Bonds is the outreach coordinator for Coal River Mountain Watch in Whitesville, West Virginia. She is a coal miner's daughter, granddaughter. Her family has lived in the Coal River Valley in West Virginia for 10 generations. Julia has been fighting for social and environmental justice for Appalachian coalfields since 1998. In 2003 she won the coveted Goldman Environmental Prize. The prize is awarded to one person from each continent and she was the North American winner. She was recently featured in the March 2006 issue of National Geographic, May 2006 Vanity Fair and in the July 2006 issue of "O, The Oprah Magazine."
Judy's efforts to fight mountaintop removal, overweight coal trucks and dangerous coal slurry waste ponds in Appalachia have also been featured in three documentary films "Kilowatt Ours," "Black Diamonds" and "Sludge." |
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| Teri Blanton is past Chair of the citizens group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. A survivor of a Superfund toxic waste site near her home in Harlan County, Kentucky, Teri's courageous stand against the abuses of coal companies has won her notoriety within her state. She is a powerful speaker against mountaintop removal. |
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Eric Blevins, of Grand View, Tennessee, is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, where he worked with Students for Environmental Action on a successful campus clean energy campaign. He is a founding member of Tennessee Alumni and Students for Sustainable Campuses and has worked with Mountain Justice and United Mountain Defense in the fight against mountaintop removal.
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