The Mountaintop Removal Road Show
The Mountaintop Removal Road Show includes a stunning 20-minute slide show about the impacts of mountaintop removal on coalfield residents, communities and the environment, and features traditional Appalachian mountain music and shocking aerial photos of decapitated Appalachian mountains.
Coalfield residents such as "mountain keeper" Larry Gibson, of Kayford Mountain, West Virginia, Teri Blanton of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and coal miner's widow Lorelei Scarbro - who lives next to a mountaintop removal mine - are available to speak after the slide show.
Road Show presentation times can be tailored to your needs, usually 50 minutes to 90 minutes is best.
The Mountaintop Removal Road Show has been shown over 700 times in 22 states since 2003 - including over 200 large and small universities such as Yale, Duke, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame Law School, Middlebury College, and Iowa State University, plus many church, community and civic organizations.
There is no charge for the presentation, all speakers are volunteers; however donations and honorariums to defray gas and travel expenses are gratefully accepted.
Alternative Spring Break - in Appalachia
Mountaintop Removal Roadshow presentation on line! (35 mins)
Photos of mountaintop removal in Kentucky
West Virginia coalfield resident Jim Foster talks about mountaintop removal
The Whippoorwill Festival - Skills for Earth-Friendly Living
June 16-19 near Berea KY
Now available for school teachers: Free mountaintop removal DVD and lesson plan. Suitable for grades 7-12. Send $3 (cash or check payable to "Mountaintop Removal Road Show) for postage and handling to: Mountaintop Removal Road Show, 608 Allen Ct., Lexington KY 40505
Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining in Appalachia |
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In West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee and eastern Kentucky, coal companies blast as much as 600 feet off the top of the mountains, then dump the rock and debris into mountain streams.
Over 300,000 acres of the most beautiful and productive hardwood forests in America have already been turned into barren grasslands. Mountaintop removal mining increases flooding, contaminates drinking water supplies, cracks foundations of nearby homes, and showers towns with dust and noise from blasting.
Photo credit: Jim Clark, www.jimclarkphotography.com
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"The Mountaintop Removal Road Show is doing the Lord's Work" - Jack Spadaro, former Director, Mine Safety and Health Academy, Beckley, West Va.
"Several decades ago, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin kept a grueling schedule traveling throughout the South, speaking to countless groups of people, raising their consciousness, helping them get organized, and linking communities together. This work was invaluable. It built the largely invisible but still critical infrastructure necessary for change to happen. Today, Dave Cooper is playing a similar role in the struggle to end Mountaintop Removal, visiting hollows and towns and cities from North to South, introducing people to an important issue, prompting them to take action, and aiding in the growth of a vibrant movement." - Dr. Chad Montrie, author, "To Save the
Land and People"
Comments from students at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania |