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Shannon Elizabeth Bell is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of Our Roots Run Deep as Ironweed: Appalachian Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice.

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In full disclosure, Dr. Bell is a friend and a colleague of mine. Yet, I doubt this fact has any influence on my opinion of this book. I always find praise, gratitude, applause, and comfort in the strength of women. These feelings are increased ten-fold when strong women are generous and trusting enough to share their stories with me.

Ironweed, as explained by Judy Bonds (2006), is a symbol for Appalachian women. She explains,

"You know that tall purple flower that's all over the mountains at the end of summer? Have you ever tried to pull it out of the ground? It's called ironweed because its roots won't budge. That's like Appalachian women -- their roots are deep and strong in these mountains, and they will fight to stay put." (p. 155)


The women of the Appalachian coal fields stay put and they fight for justice.

For about 130 years the coal industry has had a monopoly on the economy of the Appalachian hollows - the communities nestled into the base of the mountains. The twelve women in this book talk of sons, husbands, fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers who made their living through the coal mines, and just as often died through the coal mines. Black lung is still common. Mining continues to be a dangerous job and accidents occur.

The latest round of death comes out of mountain-top removal mining. Whole tops of mountains are simply blasted off. The coal and dirt is then hauled to a processing plant by speeding and overloaded trucks where it is cleaned with chemicals. The waste product of the cleaning is called "slurry" or "sludge" and is either contained in billion-gallon ponds or injected into abandoned underground mines. After cleaning the coal must then be crushed to prepare it for burning in coal-fired energy plants. This work goes on 24/7.

The results of this type of mining are horrific. With the mountain top unprotected by trees and vegetation, rain washes away whole slabs of mountain sending it into the hollows taking peoples land and homes with it. The speeding and overloaded haul trucks are difficult to control on the narrow, winding roads and end up killing residents (Bell states there was a rash of such deaths in 2001 sparking public outcry). The pools leak and break. The chemicals injected into the underground mines leach into the well-water -- water used to water gardens, bathe children, wash clothes, cook meals, and quench thirst. (Think the Charleston, West Virginia, chemical leak of a few months ago: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/07/3263491/west-virginia-water-crisis/.... The crushing causes a suffocating blanket of black coal dust to settle on the towns getting into every crevice imaginable so that children suffer from asthma and the value of a home can drop up to 90%. Now, imagine all of this as well as politicians, bureaucrats, and federal, state, and city civil servants working to ensure that the coal industry remains a protected monopoly. No military service given, no mortgage paid, no loyalty extended the company, and no child raised is allowed to impede bigger and bigger profits. The residents have no rights, they are told, except the right to move or die.

This is the reality these women fight. They are not against coal; they want responsible mining practices. These wonderful ironweeds found a voice they did not think they had in order to save their small, close-knit towns in a landscape that has protected and raised generations of their families. These women describe their activism as a moral duty or calling to protect not only their children and grandchildren but “an obligation to protect their communities, their heritage, their family homeplace, and the physical landscape that surrounds them” (p. 9). As Bell relates, here the landscape is more than a space, but is an extension of family and possibly an extension of their own souls (p. 9). The backlash towards the women takes many forms from city, state, and federal employees flagrantly ignoring laws and reformulating processes in order to protect the coal companies, to threats, to outright destruction of property or bodily harm. Donna Branham says of her determination to see their homeplace safe, “I plan to go forward, and when I can’t go forward, I’ll just stand firm" (p. 147).

I found so much to admire in these narratives. Unfortunately, we lost Judy Bonds to cancer in 2011. Dr. Bell also announced that we lost Pauline Canterberry this month (May 9, 2014), one of a pair of women known as the “Sylvester Dustbusters” for their tireless work in collecting and documenting the proliferation of coal dust polluting their hometown. My heart is full of admiration and thanks for what they gave. Their legacies continue in the work of the other women in this volume -- Maria Gunnoe, Patty Sebok, Maria Lambert, Terri Blanton, Mary Miller, Joan Linville, Donetta Blankenship, Lorelei Scarboro, Donna Branham, and Debbie Jarrell -- as well as the work of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Coal River Mountain Watch, Appalachian Voices, and Kentuckians For The Commonwealth.

GO IRONWEEDS!

… (altro)
 
Segnalato
Christina_E_Mitchell | Sep 9, 2017 |

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Opere
2
Utenti
21
Popolarità
#570,576
Voto
5.0
Recensioni
1
ISBN
7