BartonMemo7

BartonMemo7: Historicizing a Project

Late 18th/ early 19th C Coal mining begins in Appalachia

1898 United Mine Workers forms, and strengthens from here until end of WWII

1904 Draglines invented for canal building

1914-1918 World War I

1921 Battle of Blair Mountain

1929 Beginning of Great Depression

1939-1945 World War II

UMW begins to weaken following WWII

1963 Clean Air Act Subsequent amendments and pollution controls increase the demand for low-sulphur coal (prominent in Appalachia as well as the Powder River Basin in MT/WY)

?1970 First mountain-top removal site

1972 Feb. 26 Buffalo Creek disaster in Logan Co, WV

1972 April? Clean Water Act

1977 Surface Mining and Reclamation Act

2000 Oct. 11 Martin Co, KY disaster, Massey Energy, (306 million gallons of slurry spill)

c.2000 //New York Times// begins running anti-MTR articles, (ex. headline: "Decapitating Appalachia")

2001 Bush inauguration

2001 Jack Spadaro calls out the new Bush administration for ending the investigation into the Martin Co spill, forced into retirement by 2004.

2004 Ed Wiley begins challenging Massey Energy—silo and impoundment next to Wiley's granddaughter's elementary school (Marsh Fork) Judy Bonds, with Coal River Mountain Watch, calls for volunteers from outside—Mountain Justice Summer is born Massey plans to build a second silo.

2005 Clean Water Protection Act introduced to House. Would "clarify" mine waste such that it cannot be considered valley fill under the Clean Water Act.

2005 Googlemaps launched

? ilovemountains.org, website sponsored by a consortium of groups, produced by Appalachian Voices. Makes innovative use of googlemaps technology.

2006 //Lost Mountain// by Erik Reece //Big Coal// by Jeff Goodell

2007 //Moving Mountains// by Penny Loeb //Bringing Down the Mountains// by Shirley Stewart Burns

2008 //Coal River// by Michael Shnayerson

2008 December 2 Bush administration "clarifies" mining debris as fill, not waste, under the Clean Water Act thus enabling mining companies to apply for permits to dump it in waterways.

2008 December 22 Harriman, TN disaster (TVA spill)

2009 Obama inaugurated

2009, March coal plant sit-in in D.C. (with Wendall Berry, Bill McKibben)

When do the big environmental groups begin picking up the issue?