Call to Action Tour 2012; Act on ACHE

Rock Creek, WV — When the University of Michigan announced in April, 2012, that Maria Gunnoe, from Bob White, West Virginia, would be the 22nd recipient of the University of Michigan Wallenberg Medal, I made plans to attend the ceremony and public lecture she would deliver in Ann Arbor, MI.   Maria Gunnoe and Antrim Caskey after Gunnoe delivered the 22nd University of Michigan Wallenberg lecture in Ann Arbor, October 23, 2012. Maria Gunnoe has become one of the most powerful and effective voices in defense of the land and people of Appalachia.  I first met Maria in New York City in May, 2005; she told me how Patriot Coal’s 1200-acre mountaintop removal site, in her backyard since 2000, had turned her life upside down.  Three days later, I was at Maria Gunnoe’s home-place in Bob White, WV, to witness for myself.  Maria opened my eyes to the human and environmental costs of coal, particularly mountaintop removal coal mining. Despite growing national awareness, he atrocities of mountaintop removal coal mining continues, 24/7.  But over the past several years, a growing body of scientific studies has emerged, directly correlating severe human health costs to breathing the poisonous dust that comes off these sites. Bo Webb and his neighbors have built a campaign around these health studies, more than twenty now that have been published in peer-reviewed journals. These studies tell us that a non-smoking pregnant woman who lives near a mountaintop removal site is 180% more likely to bear a baby with birth defects compared to a woman who smokes cigarettes during her pregnancy, but does not live underneath a mountaintop removal site. Bo Webb and a small team have used the studies to educate our lawmakers over the past years. As a result, we have a bill in Congress that will end all new mountaintop removal coal mining, the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act (ACHE), HR 5959. The ACHE team runs a bare-bones citizen lobbying campaign out of their Washington, DC-based office.  Currently the ACHE Act has 27 sponsors, all Democrats. “We want to approach the Republican side now. What better bill than the ACHE Act that the two sides can work together on. To show the American people. It saves lives and will save money,” said Bo Webb from his home in West Virginia.  The ACHE team is planning a blitz on Washington, DC next week. The first stop on our tour was Minneapolis, MN, where my dear friends Ariel and Jeff now reside with their two daughters.  We spoke to Ariel’s co-workers at Caldrea, as part of their monthly in-house education series,”Lunch and Learn.”   We introduced them to Appalachian people directly affected by mountaintop removal coal mining — Maria, Ed, Judy, Larry, Bo and the places in West Virginia — Marsh Fork, Kayford, Rock Creek, and Bob White where they lived.  Afterwards, almost everyone took a copy of Dragline.  Some spoke up during the talk and described how surface mining has marred their local landscapes.  We told them about…