Tennessee Mountain Ridges Ripped apart by Greed.

We need a new vocabulary for destruction and greed. I feel the lack of two vocabularies. I feel the lack of words to describe the scope of destruction being done to our mountains in Tennessee my home. I also feel the lack of words to describe the people who would destroy a thousand year heritage of water for a few years boost in the profit margin. Pictures are a good way I suppose. But we need a new vocabulary for destruction and greed.
Recently I went and examined a massive landslide which occurred because of a past ridge top strip mine site that had been “reclaimed” according the Office of Surface Mining and reclamation (wreck creation) (OSM). It was in the Knoxville News Sentinel with a huge color photo on the front page taken from a plane a few days before and I wanted to see this megaslide from the ground

I grabbed some topographical maps–hopped in my decaying pick up truck, and went to the hills. As I drove up to High Point mountain where the slide was suppose to be on the NW face I began noticing other existing massive landslides from mining that were not in the paper from old mine sites. Ironically I even found two that were both visible with a sign saying “National Mine #4" in the foreground. National Coal Corporations Mine #4 is a strip mine that is slated for the other face of High Point Mountain. After interviewing several men on 4-wheelers and some guys target shooting with rifles I drove around a hillside past some methane wells and there it was.

Megaslide 1# was across the ridge from the gravel road I was on a hundred feet down from the ridge top. It was across the hollow on an opposing ridge. The highest point had blown out all the way down to the river, an elevation drop from around 2500 feet to around 1800 feet. The entire hillside had blown out like a sore bursting from the earth spewing black pus and rock out, and down, the landslide. Trees, rocks and mud all equally washed down the mountain in a tide of soil and what once was a rolling Tennessee hillside.

From my viewpoint across the ridge I calculated (guessed) where I needed to be–drove and parked my truck there, and went downhill. At the third contour (road) I headed east. I rounded the outer ridge of the slope and I was there. In the distance across the slide I could see the other end of the road I was on. I am pretty good with a wrist rocket (slingshot) and I am pretty sure I could not of hit the other slope. Between me and that road was a massive crater like pit. Deep enough from where I was standing to break bones if one took a bad fall. Steep enough at the top to kill you. It looked like it belonged on the Moon.

The scope and size of the sediment flow is almost impossible to describe...

I realized after finding it that we are going to have to come up with a new vocabulary to describe the level of damage being done to our water producing mountains by these rapacious coal companies and their complicit toadies in the state (TDEC) and federal (OSM) agencies.

The amount of soil blowing down the hillsides is not simple surface erosion. Tons of soil–and entire trees -are being swept from the tops of the cracking ridge tops down to the river and coves below. The megaslide I came to scout looked blasted. It was otherworldly the amount of damage to the earth. It was if the “reclamation” was a cancer that had finely burst from the skin of the earth. Coal and trees and shale and dirt flow wholesale down the hillside. At the top of the slide cracks 2 feet wide and dozens of feet long.

Megaslide was on a OSM and TDEC approved “reclaimed mine site”. Different species of grass and plants had been planted. The mine site was contoured–and it still blew out. The same agencies which have failed as evidenced by the multiple landslides in their approved reclaimed sites are now permitting new mining in the exact same area!

What caused megaslide is evident–you can hear it...water. At least 4 different sources of water were cutting through the shale and coal blended soil. An unstable substrate combined with water and really steep slopes creates landslides. Ridge tops may be cheap for coal companies to blast–its impossible to repair. TDEC and OSM are granting mining permits using the same regulations and engineering that is resulting in massive landslides in the same area that they are permitting.

I have witnessed environmental devastation in the past. I once spent three days seeing and smelling an old growth rainforest burn to the ground during the dry season in Africa. I have been in the center of a cut redwood whose outer edges at first made me think it was a small house. The ongoing destruction of the hills of Appalachia surpass even the burning of a rainforest in its destruction. Is surpassed thousand year old redwood groves being clearcut (murdered) by greedy corporations. It surpasses anything I have ever witnessed except one.

The only thing I have ever seen have nearly the impact on a landscape as having Tennessee Mountain ridges ripped apart is a volcano erupting into the sky. I once watched Picaya in Guatemala spew lava into the air for three days–only that comes close. And if I had my choice–I would rather have periodic volcanic eruptions in our mountains than these rapacious coal companies–volcanos would do less damage. Lava flow can actually enrich the soil and is a natural process. It does not poison the streams with selinium and acid, and a worse case volcano will only blow a hundred or so feet off a mountain.

The massive high walls from the past strip mining has entire long runs of ridges like Buffalo Mountain look like warts. The New River beneath all this has so much acid run off from the mining that it runs bright electric green. Bright green acidic ponds drain their mining poisons slowly into the streams. All of this is in the New River Watershed–an area that National Coal says “Has been mined minimally the last 100 years, but nothing like what we plan to do” www.nationalcoal.com

The beauty and promise of these green mountains as they struggle to survive the onslaught of greedy coal companies is almost painful to see. Though the hardwood forest never really grows back on the “reclaimed” mining sites there is border forest surrounding these areas where deer and other animals survive in a degraded habitat. Even electric green the streams and creeks that thread their way down into the hollows are beautiful. Amidst the terrible cris crossing of massive clear-cut and strip-mining a land of stunning beauty struggles to reassert itself into a natural balance.

Drive around on the ridge tops and you see what my friend Bob Bobson and I have dubbed “wedding cakes” in our new vocabulary of destruction. A high wall is a donut–the mountain is “donuted” is what some folks say. A “wedding cake” is where there are multiple high walls on a mountain. Driving one day scouting Bob and I saw a triple wedding cake–a mountain that been “donuted” on three levels. Green, then cliff, then green, then cliff again, then green, then another cliff, then green at the bottom. The value of a wedding cake to wildlife is dubious. Any child would have to climb three man made cliffs to get to the top of that mountain.

Yet TDEC and OSM are handing out permits like a crack dealer pushing from the street corner to the coal companies. Coal is crack to the energy companies–and our public agencies have become the pushers. TDEC is granting MORE permits in this devastated area. Fresh gravel is being spread on the ridges top roads in preparation and aid of the new mining. The price of coal has doubled and the coal companies are trembling in greed glee at the coming profits as they destroy the most biologically diverse places on the planet. Mountains that would produce water for thousands of years to the future are being sacrificed for the short term profits of a few executives in a few coal companies. Greed.

National Coal (nationalcoal.com), Massey, and all the other greedy coal companies do not care about the our future. They do not care that these mountains number one product is water–and they are destroying the mountains. They do not care that most people can see that water is going to be an issue for folks living on this planet soon–and that future, and even our–generation will regret the loss of those clean water sources. They do not care for the massive sediment choaking mountain streams killing fish. They do not care that tax payers ultimately are going to have to clean up after their messes. They simply do not care. What they do care for of course is profits. Left unchecked these coal companies fully intend to rip the ridges of Tennessee where ever they can get coal regardless of social, ecological or economic consequences. They fully intend to clear-cut Tennessee ridges, rip off her mountaintops, and destroy what is for the people of Tennessee a cultural mountain based heritage. They fully intend to–unless we stop them.

Mountain Justice Summer (mountainjusticesummer.org) is our defiance in the face of a greedy violent multi billion dollar industry that want to destroy our water producing mountains. Mountain Justice Summer is our call for others to come to the most some of the most biologically diverse mountains in the world to witness and fight for our remaining watersheds. Mountain Justice Summer is based on redwood and freedom summers in that we are asking for people all over the face of the globe to come to the oldest mountains in the world and say no more to their destruction. We need people to come from all over to work with us this summer before it is to late.

Additionally, Contact Governor Bredesen and tell him to stop the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation (TDEC) from giving permits to out of state coal companies like National Coal Company (from Florida), or to any coal company. Make him force TDEC to follow the law and its own regulations. The Tennessee Water Quality Control Act forbids issuing permits for activities that pollute the waters of the state. Mountain top removal blows up the mountains layer by layer, destroying everything that lives in them.

Katuah Earth First!
Ministry of Mountain Propaganda Faction

Email: phil.bredesen (at) state.tn.us
Sure, give him a call!
Phone: 615.741.2001
Fax: 615.532.9711
Contact Phil & ask him to do his job.
Governor's Office
Tennessee State Capitol
Nashville, TN 37243-0001

TDEC Commissioner Betsy Child: Betsy.Child (at) state.tn.us

Dave Turner: Dave.Turner (at) state.tn.us
Don Owens: Don.Owens (at) state.tn.us
Bredesen: Phil.Bredesen (at) state.tn.us
Alan Leiserson: Alan.Leiserson (at) state.tn.us (TDEC's lawyer)

TDEC homepage
ask.tdec-AT-state.tn.us" rel="nofollow">www.state.tn.us/environment/ask.tdec-AT-state.tn.us
(888) 891-TDEC (8332)
401 Church Street
L & C Annex
1st Floor
Nashville, Tennessee 37243-0435
Governor’s office
Tennessee State Capital
\Nashville, TN 37243-001
615.742.2001

Check out Mountain Justice Summer-an effort to save our Mountains based on Rewood and Mississippi summers.

mountainjusticesummer.org