Ideal Bite

While Theresa was chatting with Yuyun Ismawati last week, I sat down with the amazing Maria Gunnoe, another Goldman Environmental Award winner and a lifelong resident of West Virginia, who's working hard to protect the Appalachian Mountains she grew up in - and the people who live there - from mountaintop removal coal mining. After her house was partly destroyed in a flood (one of seven on her property), and her land and well were contaminated with toxic runoff from a nearby mine, she made a small change (hello, Internet), and another one, and another one… Big result? Halted construction of valley fills (often toxic mine rubble dumped into nearby valleys) above Maria's Boone County community. I asked her a few questions about how she made it all happen.

-Jenifer…off to turn off the lights…

After your home was hit, what was the very first thing you did?
The first thing I did was educate myself on media. I got on the Internet and looked around to see what kind of pointers that I could use to possibly get the media into my area and help to expose what's going on. 'Cuz in my opinion exposing the fact - even then - that mountaintop removal was blowing up mountains in West Virginia and Appalachia, in my thoughts, I'm thinking OK we live in the same world , you know, everybody is going to say there's something wrong with this, and it needs to stop. And I had found there's people out there that very much agree with that, and they agree mountaintop removal should stop… We cannot keep blowing up mountains to supply energy, because we're going to run out of mountains. Conserving energy is a lifestyle. Now, people, everyone, including myself, need to be more open to that possibility. Conserving energy, just conservation, could do away with mountaintop removal… The areas where we live are being polluted horribly… There's people all over where I live [who] are dying of cancer. And it's because of water pollution, air pollution, and the destruction of the land. In some cases, the land, the soil itself is polluted and not healthy to grow in. And now this is an area, a mountainous area, where people grow gardens. We don't put flowers in our gardens, we put tomato plants, you know?

How did you media train yourself and other people?
Google's a wonderful tool [laughs]. And I literally, sat down in front of my computer and I had these empty spots in my head, if you will, that I felt, I need to know this before I move forward, so I researched. I did lots of research. And I had friends in the media who helped to talk me through things. I really just adopted what I was reading… And then I got out and started working with [folks in the community], and talking to them, and telling them how important it is that we expose this industry for what they are. Across the nation, it's not accepted that people die for jobs. Their right to mine coal stops when it enters my bedroom. I am so proud of the people that I have worked with that have come out of their shells to share their stories with the media, 'cuz it's helped to turn this battle for our mountains into a whole new thing. It really has.

What are the smaller things that people are doing?
It's really small things, and it's things that they really enjoy doing. But it really works. I mean, we have people that do blogs, they go on and comment on articles, just as long as we have a voice in every blog or every comment section of [related] articles. And just talking to people… When you talk to people, tell 'em the Appalachian Mountains are getting blown up to power your home, to power your office, to power your cities. And I think really just the awareness aspect of it blows people away. They cannot imagine that there [are] mountains being leveled to supply energy. I believe that talking to people about it helps tremendously, and acting. Write to your editors, write letters to the government officials, to your - shoot, write our government officials [laughs] - they're not listening to us, maybe they'll listen to you. And conserve energy - coal not needed is coal not mined. Conserve it. Be a part of the transition to clean, renewable forms of energy… Otherwise we are sacrificing our childrens' future for energy. Is it really worth it? I don't think so. I know it's not for me. They can have my electricity right now, every bit of it, they can have it all. But they [aren't] getting my kids' future.

What's your eco-confession?
I drive a pickup truck [laughs]. I drive an F-150 pickup truck. It is a 6-cylinder, but I excuse myself for doing that because the fact that the roads that I live on are extremely dangerous roads. And the terrain there is pickup truck terrain.