30 Days to Save the Mountains: Paradise |
| Published: October 20, 2007, 3:32 pm |
| Tags: mountaintop removal mining, environment, clean water protection act |
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I was born and raised in Muhlenberg County. Yes, that place from the John Prine song. My mother worked at Paradise. Not Paradise the town -- what remained of that was a single row of forlorn, crumbling shops and the yawning foundations of houses that had turned into concrete-lined pools. No, she worked at TVA's Paradise Steam Plant. That's what became of the town of Paradise after the coal companies "hauled it away." My father was born right down the road from there, in another little town. That one's gone too. Once upon a time, Muhlenberg County was known for its fine strawberries and the region celebrated a Strawberry Festival each summer. Later, it changed to the Coal Festival. The strawberries were gone. I lived the first eighteen years of my life in Muhlenberg County, and spent another year working there in my twenties. But I don't know what it looked like. That is, I don't know what it really looked like. [ Full article ] |
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