Gray Mountain

[Gerhardt]

So I finished Grisham's latest book the other day. There were some references to sludge ponds and eco disasters that I looked up that had some truth to them. And seemed to fit a 60 Minutes segment several weeks ago about the subject. But I know he likes to take poetic license occasionally, such as with the inaccuracies in some of his aviation references. But the depiction he gave of Virginia, eastern KY and surrounding areas was one of the landscape having been obliterated. I used to travel out there quite a bit but have not for several years.

So, to those of you who live in the area - is his depiction of mountaintops being manually shaved and eroded and now barren correct? Or is it something that you might see occasionally, but for the most part everything is pretty much like it's always been? Just curious.

side note: Until I read the book and caught the 60M segment I was not aware of the eco disasters. Makes the Valdez wreck a small spill by comparison.

 

[Hank S]

So, to those of you who live in the area - is his depiction of mountaintops being manually shaved and eroded and now barren correct? Or is it something that you might see occasionally, but for the most part everything is pretty much like it's always been? Just curious.

I haven't read his latest book yet, but lived in Huntington, WV, for nine years, up until this time last year. Drove through E KY and much of WV, flew over everything many times. Active strip mines look bad, but they are almost always cleaned up afterwards. The Prestonsburg, KY airport (formerly K22, now KSJS or something) sits on reclaimed mine land, and they are still working near it.

As far as I can tell, your statement above is correct. It is not at all what the environmental groups depict, they all prefer trees and wild undergrowth over anything related to humanity. Cutting down trees to make a clearing, and using those trees to build a house rubs them wrong, and cutting down more trees to grow crops instead makes them howl like the world is ending.

Remember the big fuss they made in the 80s about how many hundreds or thousands of acres of trees were being cut, just because a few trees at a time grew in front of billboards? Statistics can be used to prove many things, and misused to prove many more. Isolated cases do not support generalities, and sweeping condemnations are almost always wrong.

Flying in WV and eastern KY is beautiful. The area is not conducive to smooth, wide roads, and some road construction projects look rather like strip mines, slicing hills in half, drilling slots where there is little dirt and much rock.