Activists gather for 'Coal Country' showing

BIG STONE GAP, Va. – A small crowd of a few dozen activists turned out Thursday for the first local showing of “Coal Country,” a film depicting the downside of mountaintop mining that will soon air on public television.

But Kathy Selvage, a Wise County woman featured in the film, says it’s been well-received outside the coalfield region and is helping to spread the message of opposition to current mining practices.

“I think it will open a lot of eyes,” said Selvage, who speaks in the film about the earthquake-like blasting, the dust and water pollution that impact her community, and the grieving she does for her mountain after what she describes as an assault on the people’s way of life.

“Sometimes, we can use verbal words to describe things, and we can accurately paint the picture with words, but I believe when you can see things you can no longer deny them,” she said.

The film was produced by Mari-Lynn Evans, a West Virginia native who says she tried to put a human face on both sides of the issue: the residents negatively affected by mining and the miners who, if they want to stay and work in the community, have a choice between blowing up mountains or flipping burgers.

“I don’t really feel any different than I did a year ago or two years ago,” said Selvage of her prominent role in the film, “so if it’s made me or my name famous it hasn’t changed me. I’m the same person.”

What she says has changed her from timid to outspoken is the fight to preserve the mountains that she feels are an important part of her heritage.

She has hosted screenings of the film in Richmond and Blacksburg and at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. Next week, she’s going to Norfolk and Dendron, Va., the proposed site for a large coal-fired power plant.

The film looks at many aspects of mountaintop mining: the dust, noise and change to the landscape it brings to communities, the social and economic conditions of the Appalachian region, the processing and burning of coal and the legal and political battles being fought to stop mountaintop mining.

It begins with a discussion of the divide among people in coalfield communities and gives mining proponents a brief voice to tell their side of the story, but overwhelmingly the message is clear: mountaintop mining is bad, and so is coal.

No one representing the coal industry was present at the screening; Bill Bledsoe, at the Virginia Mining Association, said he didn’t know of anyone who had seen the film and could comment on it.

Selvage said she was disappointed that no local politicians were present, either.

A few area residents stood up to comment after watching the film.

“You can go house after house in our community and every house has lost someone to cancer,” said Beth Davies, a longtime resident of St. Charles, a community in Lee County. “To walk in these mountains is to know your God … and what have we done? We’ve destroyed it.”

Pete Ramey, president of the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, the

Wise County-based environmental group for which Selvage serves as vice president, said: “There’s not many of us that live in this area that don’t know the devastation.”

Ramey added that Black Mountain, from the air, looks like “a continuous strip job from one end to the other.”

“It felt like they were blowing up the earth and I was escaping from it,” Ramey said of his flight.

Selvage said she sees progress on their side of the fight – and she is hopeful it will continue.

“I do think we have to acknowledge in this region, no matter how deeply coal runs in our veins, we have to acknowledge that what we’re doing is sickening the planet and it’s definitely harming the Appalachian region and its people,” she said. “We also have to acknowledge that we have other alternatives.”

dmccown@bristolnews.com (276) 791-0701