Kerry Albright on Buffalo Creek, Logan County, WV. Photo by Kerry Albright.

On March 23, 2013, OVEC brought Kerry Albright, the Miracle Baby of Buffalo Creek, to the WV Culture Center to tell his story. Here’s Kerry’s story, in his own words.

First I’d like to thank Maria Gunnoe and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition for asking me to come down from New York Ctiy to speak. Maria thought this would be a great idea because she, as well as 5.5 million other readers saw an article in the January edition of Readers’ Digest. The article was of course called “The Miracle Baby of Buffalo Creek.” Now Maria of course knew this story before the article, but millions of others had simply not heard it, or even of The Buffalo Creek Disaster. It happened in a time when we didn’t have the internet or mass media news.

As I got older and started to read all the books, documentaries and reports on the disaster I started to notice that my story was never there. I always found it odd because I was always being reminded about being The Miracle Baby a lot from the community. This disaster is in the minds of everyone on Buffalo Creek to this day. I recently got to speak to some of the women of Buffalo Creek who told me they still have night mares  and very vivid memories of that day.

But because of this recent notoriety in Readers Digest. It made me dwell on my story. Sometimes I feel like I’d told it so many times that I wasn’t for sure if even I was telling it correctly. So I had to go thru articles and ask family members to remind me of the specific details or if i was missing something. I was nine months old after all. I have no actual memories of that day. Thank God.

 All of my life I thought this story was about me. How they found me. How old I was, how I made it thru this. But the more and more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is a story not about me but a story about my father. Robert Albright.

Robert grew up with the definition of humble beginnings. My dad grew up as the son of Coal Miner and he had 11 brothers and sisters. He use to tell me stories about how he and his brother would be so hot in the summer that they would sleep under the house on the dirt simply because it was cooler. He never really seemed to complain about his childhood to me. He just kinda told me that’s the way it was. He was really proud of one moment though. That was the day that he and his brothers saved up all of their money from doing odd jobs around the camp and actually saved up to buy their Mom a refrigerator. Not a new refrigerator but a frig. I was young when he told me that story; I wish I would have asked what they were doing without one. I also had one rule growing up and that was to turn the overhead light off in the living room. This was because they didn’t have any light covers in their home and it was just one bright bulb hanging from the ceiling that hurt his eyes. So only lamps were allowed in the living room.

He went to school and was happy until he reached 6th grade. He told me that it was too embarrassing to go each day because he only had one outfit. He said “I didn’t have no clothes decent to wear anyway.”  After school he’d race home with his brothers because who ever got home first got to wear the one pair of jeans they had for the entire family, of ELEVEN. So for school….he simply quit. Now, I always found this story to be odd because my father always wore the same exact outfit everyday anyway. Seriously, at the end of each day he would take his outfit off and neatly place or hang it up. Then wake up and put it right back on. I guess it’s different when you have that choice.

My dad knew poverty and swore that he would do better for his family when he had one. So he became a coal miner and started off not really knowing anything in 1942 making very little but he worked very hard and became one of their best electricians. By 1972 he was making $42.80 a day and he could work as much overtime as he wanted.

He married a beautiful woman named Sylvia Bailey and they had two sons named Steve and Terry. Steve was a very talented saxophone player who had received a scholarship at a University.  Terry… well, let’s say he was the rebel in the family. To give an example of his rebelliousness I was told by a very special girl in his life that for today I will call Peggy Sparks Browning. Well, Peggy told me that he had an old truck and on the side of it he had put…. “Don’t laugh! Your daughters in here!” So…That was Terry.

Terry was later drafted into The Vietnam War. He did NOT want to go. This rebel was not happy about it. At one point he even wanted to run away to Canada. But a lot of people thought the army was going to be a good thing for this rebel. Because he needed some discipline and The United States army was good for that. Terry kept fighting it though, and threatening CANADA. My dad finally sat him down one day and told him he was going to the army because it was the right thing to do. So finally this rebel bowed down and listened to the words of his father. Even though terry knew in his heart that he wouldn’t return. When I say he knew, several people have told me that he seriously knew this. It wasn’t the fear of going. It was the fear of not coming back.

Terry was murdered in Vietnam by a fellow soldier and rather than recall what I was told I would like to read to you a letter that was sent to me a few years ago by Terry’s best friend in the Army. The man who stood beside him as he was murdered. This is Rudy’s letter to me.

That isn’t quite right, here is what happened.

The platoon was stopped to do some maintenance on our vehicles. Terry and I were working on our tank and decided to go to the road where some Vietnamese girls were selling beer and soda pop and get us something to drink. Terry was in country before I was so I kind of picked him as my teacher to show me the ropes. I was in country for only four months at the time. Anyway we walked to the road and left our rifles at the tank because it was supposed to be fairly secure where we were. We were talking to one of the girls when she gave Terry a bright yellow towel, which we thought was pretty cool being we live in a world of OD GREEN. Shortly after a GI came up to me and Terry and told Terry he wanted the towel. Terry told him no and we went back to talking. The  GI cussed at Terry and Terry told in no again with a few cuss words of his own. The GI then told Terry to give him the towel or he would blow him away. Being that term was used every day we didn’t pay it any mind and told him to get screwed and went back talking to the girl. The GI then selected auto and his M 16 and fired several rounds into Terry. I watched Terry fall and the GI then turned the rifle on me and said “you are his friend you’re next”. I don’t know what I said to the guy but he didn’t shoot me. I don’t know what happened after that, I can’t remember how or who stopped him no matter how much I try. I feel I should have done something to stop it. I am sorry. Terry was a good man and didn’t deserve to die like that.

Rudy G. Morris

The army actually did inform my family of this story. There was no cover up or conspiracy and Terry’s death was listed as a homicide.

Needless to say this devastated my father and he never really got over the fact that it was his demands, as his father, that he went. I remember every year on Terry’s birthday I could see my dad staring blankly at the floor. I could see he was concerned but as a child I didn’t quite understand those emotions just yet. But he’s always pause from his stare and look at me and say…ya know…He wanted to go to Canada.

After Terry’s death it was brought to my Mom and Dad’s attention that a cousin was pregnant and had decided that she was not going to be able to care for the child. Robert and Sylvia had always wanted and third child and this might be a good time for the addition. So I was adopted and Named Kerry, after my brother Terry. My dad told me that they had signed the adoption papers before I was born. He said. So no matter what you came out looking like, I was going to have to take you. Thanks Dad.

As a baby, from what I have heard, I was really cute. I was just this perfect little blonde angel that was sent from the heavens. They were obsessed over me. Even Steve, The 17 year old son would carry me around and take me everywhere and show me off as his baby brother.

Everything was getting better and life was slowly coming back from the shock of Terry’s death. Steve had received a scholarship for his ability to play tenor sax. He was very excited to be attending a concert at the college but unfortunately it had rained so hard the past few days that they decided that it wasn’t safe to go. So, no big deal, they decided to just stay home and have a family night.

Then they heard car horns blowing and people screaming. Steve ran outside to investigate only to find a 20 foot wall of black water coming directly at him. Now, I’d like to stop for a moment and just point something out. Just 5 seconds ago I was talking to you about how my brother was on a scholarship for college, My Mom and Dad were slowly recovering from Terry’s death and they had this wonderful new bundle of joy in their lives, me. Then in the blinking of an eye life changed. It changed because this is what happens when a dam breaks. When a dam breaks and you basically live in its path you don’t get to make a quick call or grab a bag. You do the ONLY thing you can do and that’s RUN.

This is exactly what my mom and brother did. They were running with me to get to higher ground on the mountain side. Some people had already made it and they were screaming for my family to make it too. The beginning of the wave of water had risen above their ankles and they could no longer pick their feet up.  The force of the water itself and the fact that the water was a black sludge created suction and made it difficult to lift their feet. They knew they were not going to make it. There was no time left. So without hesitation in a last moment effort they counted to three and threw me at nine months old as far as they could to the mountainside. Even with every ounce of life they had left it still was not enough to get me to safety and the water took all three us with it. This is how I lost my mother and brother.

After I was separated from them, it was just me, the millions of gallons of black muddy water that carried me and God. I’m nine months old and being drug away by a tsunami of chemicals, debris and negligence. The raging water was so powerful that it would pick up houses and crush them. Some people could be seen literally riding on the tops of their homes as the water took them away.

After the wall of water had passed and the ground could be seen again the people of Buffalo Creek immediately started to look for survivors. But they didn’t expect to find anyone because who could survive a disaster that crushed your home, carried your car away and left an entire community covered in a black chemical based sludge.

But they looked anyway. It was the preacher and his son, the Vanovers. As they were wading thru the filth. The son told his father that he thought he heard a baby cry. They thought that there’s no way a baby could have survived this. It must have been the cry of an animal. But they looked anyway. Then they saw what appeared to be the leg of a baby doll sticking out of the mud. They grabbed the dolls leg and pull it out from underneath thick mud. They didn’t pull out a doll. They pulled out a nine month old baby and they found that baby because they looked anyway.

If there is anyone that has set an example in my life on how to walk in blind faith it was the Vanovers. They walked blindly and yet they were guided. But I’m by no means safe yet. They saw that my mouth was packed with mud so I had no way to breathe. They immediately carried me to Catherine Gent who just happen to be there and just happen to be a nurse. So she immediately took me from their arms and started forcefully clearing my throat. I had the privilege of speaking to Catherine a few months ago at her home and I got hear her tell me the story directly. She was so sweet and so kind at 92 years old but when she got to the part of the story where she took me from their arms a new person emerged. Her voice deepened.

She said, I took you and started getting everything out of your mouth. I had to force my two fingers down your throat and i just kept pulling out what looked like oily seaweed. It was just strings and string of junk. I have no clue what that actually was. After that she had to make a bandage from bed sheets to hold my right leg on. She said the debris had cut it down to the bone and it looked like a piece of butchered meat. Plus she was very worried because thru all of this I never made one sound. I never even cried. I just quietly laid there as she worked on me. She never even knew who I was because I was covered in that black oil and unrecognizable. Even though I was her 1st cousin’s child.

Now my Dad just happened to be working the Hoot Owl shift when all of this took place. he told me he was about a mile down in that hole and was riding a belt out when all of the sudden the power went out. He was confused because he didn’t hear anything that suggested that there was a problem. But he felt he needed to go ahead and crawl the rest of the way out the hole himself.

When he reached the top he saw the confusion and panic from people. He knew what had happened and he knew the rest of his life that he had worked so hard for was most likely gone as well. He had just lost Terry in Vietnam and now he’s lost his entire family. He feels like he’s lost it all but still, he climbed over a mountain to get where his home and family once stood.”

When he finally got there what he saw was nothing. There was nothing there.  But in that nothingness he still asked…Has anyone seen my family? No one had an answer but a neighbor finally said, I think your baby may be alive. But since I was still covered in that thick sludge, no one could identify me. He finally made it over to the small room I was in and saw me in the arms of my Aunt Patty. She said “Robert, I can’t get him to cry and I’m still trying to get this black stuff out of his mouth.” That’s when my dad, without saying a word , leaned over and gently picked me up and softly kissed my cheek. That’s when I started wailing because I knew I was safe in the arms of my Father.

So we got into my Uncle Larry’s truck and he had went ahead and created a road for us to travel on. He got us as far down the holler as he could till I was put into an emergency vehicle that got me to the hospital where they finally could perform surgery to fix my partially severed leg and to clean my body so the sludge chemicals that were already going thru my bloodstream wouldn’t make it worse. I looked like I was in an oil spill. It took them three days to complete the work on me and my father never left my side. Not even for a moment. Not even to change out of his filthy work clothes. He simply chose to wait.

A few days later my dad went to the make-shift morgue at South Man Grade School to identify the bodies of my mother and brother. They were found 800 yards from our home. We moved into a FEMA trailer and lived in Accoville Hollow till I was almost 5. That’s when he decided to take that trailer and place it exactly where our house once stood. He said… I was born and raised here and I will die here.

My father never returned to the mines after that day. He decided that he was going to raise me by himself and he was going to be just fine doing it. He later told me. I had to learn to cook, how to clean, how to sew….I even had to learn how to rock you to sleep at night. So in 1972 my father became a single parent stay at home Dad and he was proud of his new found domestic skills. Later on people started to ask him why he hadn’t re married and he always had a kind answer. Then one day someone asked that question and I guess it rubbed him the wrong way because this new breath had gone into his body that I had not previously seen. He looked her dead in the eye and said, Because I don’t want someone coming into my home that I’ve built and trying to tell me how I should live my life and I definitely don’t want someone coming in here telling Kerry how he should live his. That person never asked that question again. Later on he told me in his soft spoken voice. You can be whoever you want to be and you can do whatever you want to do.

     I stood behind the table watching the young girl study the images.  Her long dirty-blonde hair glistened in the sun and swayed in the chilly breeze.  She must have been around eleven or twelve.  She spoke softly to her younger brother.  He was about seven or eight but you could see his young mind trying to process what she was saying.  “It’s dirty water,” she said “and people have to drink it.”

This Mingo County family’s well water was clean before the coal slurry injections began. Photo by Vivian Stockman, www.ohvec.org.

     They were just a couple of the many passer-byers on the street in front of the courthouse in Fayetteville during the Earth Day celebration there on April 2Oth.  I had set up a table with information on OVEC and our joint project in Fayette County led by Southern Appalachian Labor School, the Coalfield Environmental Health Project.

     The two children were examining photos of contaminated water from the communities of Rawl and Prenter and other areas.  Pictures of acid mine drainage, sinks with water red as tomato soup, toilet tanks that had turned black, and images of people holding up samples of their water.  Some black, contaminated with coal slurry, some red or brown, and some with particulates of who knows what swirling around.  They quickly looked over the images of the barren moonscapes that were once mountains with lush green forests.  I listened as closely as I could without looking conspicuous.  Only hearing bits and pieces but the expressions on their faces spoke volumes.  They were shocked, disgusted and I think she expressed a little bit of anger and sadness.

     It made me think back to earlier that week. I was in Philadelphia at a rally in front of the offices of EPA Region 3.  I had joined local citizens from southwestern Virginia who were fighting mountaintop removal in their backyards too and folks from the Philadelphia area who were there to support us.  Some were students from Swarthmore College who are working on a fossil fuels divestment campaign on campus and some were allies from the Earth Quaker Action Team.  We had spent about 2 hours on that chilly, grey day chanting and singing and holding signs that said things like “Appalachia is locked to dirty water” and “The EPA has the key.”  As we wrapped up our rally, I turned to see a gentleman walking up with about 15 children.

     He introduced himself and his class.  They were a group of 4th graders at a nearby Quaker school.  He said they had been studying civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action.  I knew why.  Quakers have a history of standing up for what’s right.  He asked us if we would explain to the kids why we were protesting.   I told them, “we are here in front of the Environmental Protection Agency protesting because of mountaintop removal.”  Instantly I could see the look of confusion on their faces at the words, “mountaintop removal”.  The children in Philadelphia had never imagined such a thing.

Dustin White and Jane Branham explaining mountaintop removal to a group of 4th graders outside the EPA Dist 3 office in Philadelphia.
Photo by Louis Martin

     We were immediately bombarded with questions.  Jane Branham from Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards (SAMS) and I tried to answer every one while trying to make it simple for them to understand.  They were children after all; the answers couldn’t be too complicated. We explained how it contaminates water and is making people sick and explained away the jobs myth. I watched their reactions.  They were confused by how anyone could blow up a mountain especially when it makes people sick.  If only I could have told them how I, at 29, was just as confused about it.  You could see it in their faces – the confusion, fear, sadness, and anger.  If they didn’t have to return to class I think they were ready to join us for another round of chants.

      Children.  To them the world is a different place.  They understand how special life can be, whether it’s a flower or a cute little animal or another person.  They would certainly never think of harming another person for any reason and they especially wouldn’t think about blowing up a mountain for coal or making someone’s water turn into poison.  They are loving and compassionate.  The children at the table in Fayetteville and in Philadelphia hadn’t thought about mountaintop removal as part of their world.  They hadn’t really had to deal with it where they lived.  To them it was new, an alien idea.  But you could see it on their faces, they didn’t like it.  In a way they were lucky.

     But there are children in Appalachia who aren’t so lucky.  The children who have to live with mountaintop removal right over their homes and schools and have to drink and bathe in that “dirty water”; the words the young girl used to describe it.  They are the ones truly in the wake of mountaintop removal.  All the children with cancers and other illnesses to those born with a 46% higher chance of birth defects because their mom’s lived near MTR all because they have to blow up a mountain for coal.  It doesn’t take an adult mind to realize that’s just not right.  All the little children our elected officials have failed to protect.

      Children.  That’s ultimately who we fight for, right?   Not just the children in Appalachia, but all the children –  from those 15 school children there on the sidewalk in front of the EPA office in Philly to the children that ran around the street in front of the Fayette County Courthouse and across the world.  It is their future we gamble with.  As U.S. citizens we are supposed to “promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”  That’s what the preamble to the Constitution says.  The word posterity means future generations.  That’s our children and their children and so on.  They should never have to be afraid of drinking bad water.  They should never have to breathe toxic air.  And it will be them who are stuck cleaning up what we do today.

Mountaintop removal in southern West Virginia. Photo taken Oct. 30, 2005.

      No, the world owes them the same gentleness and compassion they give to the world.  We should never have to justify their suffering to a job or paycheck.  They deserve better and we deserve to give them better.  They look to adults for examples and just what exactly are we teaching them when we say something like it is ok to blow up a mountain and potentially make someone sick, maybe even another child, just so someone can have a job.  How do you justify any of it to a child?  The answer is you can’t.  If you ever face that situation just stop and think, what would a child’s reaction be?  What would the look on their faces be if you said something like that to a child?  I bet it would be something like fear, anger, or sadness.

      Those children in Fayetteville and the Quaker students in Philadelphia reminded me why I fight mountaintop removal and those who try to justify it and allow it to happen.  And the kids did it all without saying a word, just the looks on their tiny faces and the thoughts behind their wide eyes.  I do this work for them and the children of Appalachia and the children around the world.  They reminded me just how precious life can be, all forms of life, because to them it’s just as precious.  There is a certain wisdom and intelligence in a childs mind.  Something some seem to lose as they get older.

      As adults, maybe we should be looking to our children to teach us how to care for the world and each other, not the other way around.  This is their world and what type of legacy should we be leaving them?  As the old Native American proverb goes; “Honor the earth and remember that it wasn’t handed down from your ancestors but loaned to you by your offspring.”

xx

After a West Virginia legislative session fraught with bad bills such as the weakening of the selenium standard for streams and making the contents of the toxic fracking fluid a “trade secret,” there were a couple of bright spots this past week.  One of which occurred when The House of Delegates on Monday called for bankrupt Patriot Coal Corp. to honor its promises to around 23,000 retired miners and their families.

OVEC has supported the Fairness at Patriot campaign since the beginning (http://ohvec.org/blog/2012/10/16/solidarity-patriot-benefits-a-concern-for-all/), as environmental justice and social justice go hand in hand.  Those working in the coalfields and those living in the coalfields are often the same people, and even when not both, are affected by the corporate malefeasense, greed and dismissal of companies such as Patriot.

Patriot has shown as much distain for its workers as it has for coalfield residents in West Virginia, and our environment, health and heritage.  We salute these Patriots workers, retirees and their families for standing up and saying “Enough!” to exploitive companies like this. We hope to express solidarity with their struggle as we struggle ourselves.  As the old labor adage goes, an injury to one is and injury to all.  We wish them luck on their march on Patriot’s WV headquarters in Charleston this coming Monday.  We hope these workers receive justice, just as we help others (no apostrophe) living in the coalfields seek justice from the likes of Patriot.  As we know from our lawsuit against them for their selenium pollution violations, you must take the fight to them to get results.

A March 8 post in “Grounded,” The State Journal’s energy blog, vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association, and notorious funny man, Chris Hamilton was quoted saying that some West Virginia delegates might not know “the difference between a dragline and a drag queen.” He made these remarks at a recent coal industry conference where he and his fellow industry officials trotted out their bought and paid for members of the West Virginia House of Delegates.

The blog reads:

Hamilton said “It’s a hell of a lot easier” when someone passionate about the industry not only listens, but seeks industry support on legislation. Hamilton said in addition to passion, these delegates bring a knowledge of the industry. He said sometimes a “teacher” or “librarian”delegate speaks up to a coal-related bill and might not even know “the difference between a dragline and a drag queen.”

But we got to wondering, does Chris even know the difference?  After all, draglines are huge and hideous and drag queens are fierce, beautiful, and fabulous people.  They shouldn’t even be compared in the same sentence together.  And to the best of our knowledge, there has never been a 260 ft. tall drag queen that has destroyed an entire mountain while poisoning Appalachian streams and making people sick. We don’t think many drag queens would knowingly and willingly put people’s lives at risk for profit.  No, that would be the coal industry and their ugly giant mechanical beasts like the dragline. How could anyone not know the difference, right?

Silly Guy! Sometimes Chris, things you say could almost be funny… almost.

Why do legislators continue to listen to coal industry lobbyists who insult their intelligence and the LGBT community?

2 p.m. update: HR2579 has passed in the House.  An identical bill, SB 472, will be considered by the Senate. Please call your senators to tell them not to support SB 472.

HR2579 is being fast tracked in the West Virginia House of Delegates under the guise of “stream protection,” when in fact this bill will weaken current selenium standards and allow the coal industry to discharge more selenium from mountaintop removal sites into streams. This bill is scheduled for its third reading in the House soon and may be voted on possibly as early as today.  This bill is a blatant disregard for life and safety, in another attempt by state legislators to appease the coal industry.

Excessive amounts of selenium can harm aquatic life. When animals absorb or accumulate extremely high concentrations of selenium, that can cause reproductive failure and birth defects.

In humans, health impacts can vary from brittle hair and deformed nails, to rashes, heat, swelling of the skin and severe pains. When selenium ends up in the eyes people experience burning, irritation and tearing. Selenium bioaccumulates in the body tissues of organisms, magnifying up the food chain.

Please call your delegate today to tell her or him  to vote no on HR2579, to protect human health and safety.  Remind your delegate s/he is supposed to work for the people, not the coal industry.

The Janowski’s log home.
Photo by Mickey Janowksi.

A letter to the editor alerted me to my chance to finally see a microhydro system. On January 18, Vivian Stockman and I visited Mickey and Jennifer Janowski, who live at an elevation of 2,250 feet in Webster County, W.Va.

We didn’t go to admire their log home, which they built themselves — but we did that, too, while we were there. They’ve had an off-grid solar power system since the 1970s, but it was minimal: 500+ watts with a less-than-ideal exposure. However, they live on a lovely, reliable creek. So, with help from Matt Sherald, owner of Power In My Backyard (PIMBY), Janowski recently built a microhydro system to supplement the solar power system. They used a turbine called the Stream Engine, created by Paul Cunningham of Energy Systems and Design.

The screen that filters out debris. Janowski built the box on which the screen rests. He says he made the box with the front overflow less than an inch above the top of the 4″ intake pipe. But now he realizes the box needs to be deeper, creating a deeper water reservoir, That will prevent air from entering the intake. Air in the intake reduces the water pressure during some flow conditions. It is a minor tweak to the system that Janowski will make in drier summer weather.
Photo by Vivian Stockman.

The upper end of the system.
Photo by Mickey Janowksi.

Construction of the upper end of the system.
Photo by Mickey Janowski.

The upper end of the system is a concrete weir in the creek, a sort of dam with the water channeled through a box in the center of a spillway. The box has a screen that filters out debris . The screen was designed and fabricated by Marvin Woodie and Larry Agnew from Conn-Weld Industries in Princeton, W.Va. Water seeps through the screen into the box, where it is channeled into an intake pipe. A concrete pillar nearby holds the intake pipe steady in the sometimes-turbulent creek.

In order for the water diverted from the stream to the pipe to have enough energy to turn the Stream Engine turbine, it had to course along a hefty drop in elevation. Janowski buried more than 500 feet of four-inch PVC pipe from the intake right below his home to a little building, the powerhouse, where the turbine is housed. That gave him a 47-foot drop and 750 watts of power — power that, unlike solar, runs 24 hours a day. If there’s a long summer dry period, the turbine will produce less power, but that’s when the sun picks up the slack.

In fact, the Janowskis have a small heater on the basement wall that automatically runs when the power is too much for the six L-16 batteries that store the fossil-fuel-free power their system generates.  Windmills work this way also, while with solar, you need not keep a steady load as the charge controller just opens the circuit when the batteries are fully charged.

In the powerhouse, Janowski shows Wildfire the lower end of the microhydro system. Water rushes through the pipes into the turbine.
Photo by Vivian Stockman.

In the powerhouse, the arriving water splits into two curving arms and a third, narrower pipe that goes straight — this one is just a diversion for draining the system to avoid freezing and normally is shut off. From the two curving arms, water shoots from both directions at the wheel in the turbine, spinning it to produce electricity. Janowski says having two nozzles increases the power. There are monitors in this house measuring temperature, gallons per minute at the outflow (150 when we were there) and power (it was producing 35.5 amps) The power travels as AC current up to the house.

Janowski says that, at first, he looked at his system every day, but it had been five weeks since he’d last looked at it — it doesn’t need regular attention. However, if the water pressure drops a lot (as in summer dry periods) he needs to tighten the nozzles so as to maintain pressure.

The power system cost about $12,000, not counting burying the pipe, but Janowski said it could have been done less expensively, especially for someone who borrows from the lessons other microhydro installers have learned.

Janowski at the controls. Don’t worry, it is all automated.
Photo by Vivian Stockman.

Thanks again to the Janowskis for showing us their nifty power system and their beautiful house, as well as for serving us an excellent lunch! Their system illustrates the fact that solar panels are not the only feasible way to produce your own power.

Editor’s note: This article will appear in the March edition of OVEC’s Winds of Change quarterly newsletter. in early February, Janowski noted that every day since he installed the microhydro system, more than 100 days, the system has generated more electrical power than his household can use.

Janowski also notes that the cost could be significantly lower for folks who can have their powerhouses closer to their dwellings. Costs savings would come from using less water-transporting pipes and from using DC power. For people who need more details, please e-mail vivian@ohvec.org and she will pass along your questions to Janowksi, who will answer as he can.

The New York Times reported that Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said, “Economic growth is what is going to make mountaintop removal palatable.”

Since becoming a West Virginia public figure Manchin has been the state’s mouthpiece for the coal industry, shouting from the flattened mountaintops the praises of the industry. When a lie is big, one shouts it much louder.

Senator Manchin addresses the astroturf group FOC – Friends of Coal

Ignoring the growing links to cancer, congestive heart failure, nervous system damage, respiratory diseases, asthma, lower life expectancies and severe birth defects in coal field communities, Manchin only sees dollar signs.

Coal towns with mountaintop removal sites resemble wartime towns pillaged by an advancing army, that army being coal profiteers. For maximum profits, they raped former panoramic landscapes, blasted away majestic mountaintops, and left desolation behind.

Since Manchin’s 2005 election, nearly 100 people have been killed in West Virginia mining accidents, including the methane gas explosion that killed 29 miners in April 2010 in Montcoal, the worst mining disaster in the nation in more than 25 years.

Despite the growing deaths, health impacts and irreparable environmental damage, Manchin continues to wave the ‘Friends of Coal Banner.’ So now we ask him to bring his ‘palate’ to a coal town and live for six weeks in a community directly affected by mountaintop removal.

As the cameras roll for this Reality TV Show, Manchin and his wife will live their lives as far too many Appalachians do. After six weeks in a coal town, affected by tainted water, polluted air, massive explosions and poverty, let’s see how palatable mountaintop removal will be to Manchin’s rich-man taste buds.

We need clean elections and fair courts now.

Feb. 19 Rally for Democracy skit.
Photo by Jim Sconyers

The West Virginia legislature needs to make permanent the successful program for a public campaign finance option in state Supreme Court elections.  No more Don Blankenships!

That’s why I created a petition to the West Virginia State House, the West Virginia State Senate, and Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, which says:

“Please pass the bill that would make permanent the successful program for a public campaign finance option in state Supreme Court elections. We need fair and impartial courts and clean elections in West Virginia to make sure outside money is not corrupting our democracy. Make this program permanent and expand public finance to other races!”

Will you sign my petition? Click here to add your name.

Thanks!

P.S.  Thanks to everybody who came out to our Rally for Democracy. Here and here and here is some news coverage of that event.  We update Clean Elections news on a regular basis. Check in here often.

MTR is hazardous to humans and other living things.
Photo by Vivian Stockman. Flyover courtesy SouthWings.org

Social media provides a whole new toolbox of creative ways to network and get people thinking about MTR.  WhiteHouse.gov is also allowing petitions online as part of their effort to help grassroots efforts.  Well, it feels important to realize that even if we are successful in getting the one hundred thousand signatures that would compel the Whitehouse to comment on MTR,  that is not guarantee that we would like their answer.   What to do!

A petition on “We the People” is posted for 30 days.  Regardless of the number of signatures we arrive at on any single petition,  the petitions are a great way network among anyone who will listen and keep the issue in front of their eyes, and hopefully in their minds.   With this in mind, please sign the latest petition to help stop MTR.  I will be coordinating with others to change the wording over the months, and intend on starting a new petition very month, for at least the next two years.

Is it as easy as that?  Well no.  I am only one person.  The idea is based on the premise that those who feel passionate about stopping MTR might be willing to network in just as many ways as possible to get the petitions in front of readers’ eyes, without being aggravating or overbearing.

Please help by signing the latest petition, but more importantly please work this effort by sharing it on social media sites; and, exercising your networking abilities.  Actually, this repeated petition idea, is in fact a great way to increase the validity of our networks beyond the petitions.

Here’s a link to the February 15 petition.

Warm regards, Al Justice.

OVEC’s Maria Gunnoe
with Daryl Hannah at the F13 rally.
Photo by the Sierra Club’s Mary Anne Hitt

OVEC’s Maria Gunnoe
and 350.org’s Bill McKibben at the F13 rally.
Photo by the Sierra Club’s Mary Anne Hitt

Several OVEC members and staff are heading to Washington D.C. for the largest climate rally in history, happening this Sunday, February 17. If you can’t join us in person, please join the rally online. Hashtags in use for the rally include #forwardonclimate, #f17. With your tweets please include #(your zip code), so we get a view of the support from our area. OVEC will be trying to tweet from the event. Follow OVEC here and me here.

In a lead-in event to the rally, OVEC organizer Maria Gunnoe was among 48 people arrested outside the White House yesterday. Their focus was on the Keystone tar sands pipeline and what approval of the pipeline will mean for the climate. As a follow up to that action, please call President Obama to tell him to reject Keystone XL.

Like tar sands extraction, mountaintop removal is climate ground zero. Here’s Maria’s statement from yesterday:

President Obama must end mountaintop removal coal mining. Coal kills from the cradle to the grave. It’s a climate catastrophe and a personal one. We in Appalachia know firsthand what it means when the coal industry moves in and takes over your community. Energy companies and government agencies uproot and pollute the land, air and water that sustains all our lives, with energy as their excuse. This simply is not an acceptable plan for our children’s future. We deserve a healthy energy plan. One that ends mountaintop removal coal mining and its deadly impacts on Appalachian people. No one should have to die for electricity in America.

We’ve collected links to many of the news stories generated from yesterday’s action here (look for the tornado and fist icons).

It’s interesting that these arrests were happening the very day that, 100 years ago, Mother Jones was arrested in Charleston, W.Va. Her arrest helped bring national attention to the plight of coal miners’ working conditions.

Meanwhile, on this St. Valentine’s Day, if you aren’t already in Kentucky for I Love Mountains Day, show your love by joining the event online.

Also, show Maria a little love by helping to garner as many signatures as you can ASAP on her petition here. The deadline for the petition is tomorrow.