At issue | Herald-Leader news story Aug. 16: "The plan: Plant 125 million trees; group wants to reforest E. Ky. mining sites."
Last February, when actress Ashley Judd addressed hundreds of Kentuckians concerned about mountaintop removal strip mining from the state Capitol steps, she offered some helpful advice: Don't just tell your representatives what you're against; tell them what you're for.
Bill Estep's profile of the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative's effort to plant 125 million trees on former strip mine sites, creating 2,000 jobs, is an excellent example of what we should be for.
But it is also a reminder that we must continue to be very clear about what we are against: leveling Eastern Kentucky's mountains in the name of cheap energy.
ARRI's coordinator, Patrick Angel, has vision and integrity. He, with the University of Kentucky forestry's Chris Barton and Don Graves, should be commended for their research into reforesting mine sites.
However, one can easily see the coal industry co-opting this effort as justification to continue stripping the tops off mountains and burying streams with the toxic debris. We who support ARRI's work must remain adamant that mountaintop removal strip mining be stopped. There are 1.5 million acres of former mountains that have already been stripped; we need not add one acre more.
Reforestation could be important in sequestering carbon and creating jobs, but it will not bring back the thousands of miles of streams that have been buried by mountaintop removal. It will not restore the original contour of the mountain, as stipulated by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. It will not prevent the damage to wells and groundwater associated with blasting, and it will not prevent slurry ponds from breaking or leaking black water.
Having said all that, I would also like to say this: Angel has offered us a glimpse of a new, clean-energy economy that could replace coal's dangerous monopoly.
Reforestation alone cannot do it. But it is part of a new economic paradigm that Kentucky must quickly adopt in the face of climate change and dwindling natural resources.
What's more, the model for such an economy exists right here — the watershed. Consider this: A strip mine is a direct cause of erosion, flooding, species loss, toxic streams and the carbon dioxide production that is driving our climate crisis. By contrast, an intact watershed — such as Robinson Forest — prevents erosion and flooding, provides wildlife habitat and sequesters huge amounts of carbon. A watershed provides, for free, all the natural services that a strip mine cannot. It is diverse, decentralized, self-sufficient and conservative. It is a model not only for the economy, but for survival.
Some very bright minds are at work applying the principles of what the University of Vermont's John Todd calls "ecological design." Todd recently won the Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award for plans to build Agro Eco-Parks on former strip mines throughout Appalachia.
Todd's model begins with reforestation (though I am convinced by Angel that UK scientists have a better reforestation plan), then manages hardwood trees for carbon sequestration and wildlife habitat, while producing fast-growing trees to create the renewable biofuels that would ultimately replace coal as the region's source of energy.
Like the diverse watershed, these parks could also offer diverse and decentralized sources of energy. Photovoltaic panels mounted on Eastern Kentucky's many south-facing valley fills could generate more energy than mountaintop removal provides. Energy from these panels, coupled with biofuel and some wind power, could be carried far beyond Kentucky on a direct-current "smart grid."
The ultimate effect of this new economy would be to take power — political and financial — away from large, absentee corporations and return it to the people of the region in the form of new energy cooperatives.
Who will pay for the start-up? Certainly some money will come from the federal stimulus package. But beyond that, we must continue to tax what is harmful. We've raised taxes on cigarettes and alcohol. It's time to raise the severance tax on coal — the most dangerous element of our economy.
But since most state legislators don't have the nerve to do that, I'll praise my representative, Congressman Ben Chandler, for voting for a federal cap-and-trade bill. It could stave off ecological catastrophe and generate profits that I trust Chandler to steer back into Kentucky's new, renewable economy.
