Although Earth Day officially begins April 22, ETSU saw its first related event more than a week ago when volunteer Dave Cooper presented a multi-media awareness focus on Mountaintop Removal Mining in Appalachia.
Mountaintop Removal is also called “surface mining” and consists of massive amounts of explosives used to expose the coal seams under the mountain, sometimes blasting 600-1000 feet off a mountain to reach the material. The broken rocks are discarded in the valley adjacent to the mountain in what is called a valley fill, burying land and streams underneath.
“Mountaintop Removal was really first anticipated when the surface mining law was written in 1977,” Cooper said, “but recently there has been an explosion of the practice due to its efficiency.”
Critics of the practice argue that surface miners and nearby residents are exposed to harmful particles that cause silicosis of the lungs, while mountain communities, water supplies, and land stability are irreparably damaged. Cooper also spoke about the related 2000 Martin County Coal spill in Kentucky, which happened after an “impoundment” dam broke and was larger than the infamous Exxon-Valdez spill. Cooper has worked in various positions as a mechanical engineer in the past and is now a full-time organizer for Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.
Earth Day events span most of April and continue today with a presentation on Air Quality of The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, by Jim Renfro on the third floor of the Culp Center at 12:45 p.m.
Today also begins The Mountain Justice Film Festival. The Mountain Justice Film has visited several universities in the surrounding area including the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
Among the films showing will be Anne Lewis’s To Save the Land and People. Lewis won an Academy Award for her documentary Harlan County, and has lived around the coalfields of Eastern Kentucky for 25 years. To Save the Land and People focuses on landowners’ resistance to strip-mining by companies who bought the mineral rights to their land.
The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man explores the collapse of a coal sludge dam in Buffalo Creek, West Virginia and its effects. The film features interviews related to the 125 deaths and massive destruction of property when 132 gallons of coal slurry buried and flooded the Buffalo Creek community. The films begin will be shown through Saturday, April 22, and will be shown at Brown Auditorium and The Acoustic Coffeehouse. For complete scheduling information consult the student group clean energy web site at studentorgs.etsu.edu/cleanenergy.
Melissa Glaze, the acting president of Campus Greens said that “ETSU is powered by 80 percent coal and other than that burn a No. 2 diesel and some gas.” Recently at ETSU, the Student Initiative for Clean Energy formed after a time when President Bush has proclaimed America is plagued by an oil addiction. Along with Dr. Enuf, Mahoney’s, the Johnson City Power Board, and other student groups and companies, they will meet outside on Friday April 21 with members of the ETSU bluegrass program playing in the background.
The trash audit is a truly unique event for ETSU. Kathleen Moore, who is involved in the arboretum program and physical plant, estimates that as much as 60 percent of ETSU’s trash can be reclaimed through recycling. On Friday, April 21, participants will pull together ETSU’s garbage cans over a large plastic cover and discover what items could be reused in the future to save money and space. The event is set to take place near Sherrod Library.
Earth Day participation reaches to ETSU’s president when Dr. Paul Stanton will attend the planting of “The Earth Day Garden,” beautifying the sitting area between Sherrod Library and the Culp Center from 12:30-2 p.m.
Earth Day will events will end when Volunteer ETSU organizes to clean up “The Zep Spot” and “The Beauty Spot” on April 29. Volunteer ETSU and anyone wanting to participate will need to meet in the parking lot behind the new Sherrod Library at 9:45 a.m.

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