Residents from Appalachia will discuss the disastrous effects of mountaintop removal coal mining on their environment, culture, and heritage as the "Mountaintop Removal Road Show" comes to Baxter Hall Room 101 at noon today.
"If you are interested in social, economic, or environmental issues, this will be of interest to you," says Nathan Rutz ’09, whose Students for Sustainability is sponsoring the presentation. Rutz spent two months last summer in Coal River, WV, with Mountain Summer Justice, a non-profit "call to action from the people of the Appalachians for help in saving mountains, streams, and forests" from mountaintop removal mining.
Rutz shared his experience in "Mountain Justice," an essay for Wabash Magazine, where he quoted the farmer-poet Wendell Berry: "To countenance mountaintop in West Virginia is to agree to the destruction of Yosemite or Yellowstone."
Rutz's experience in West Virginia was shaped by the Appalachian people he met, and he returned to Wabash determined to get the word out about what he'd seen.
The noontime presentation is free and open to the public.
In photo: Nathan Rutz ’09 in front of mountaintop removal operations at Kayford Mountain, WV.