Strange As This Weather Has Been

John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, made America aware of the struggles that a small group of poor Oklahoma farmers were experiencing. Called Okies, they were driven off their land by greedy developers and they had no choice except to relocate. Trouble was, they had very little money and no place to go. As they spread out and tried their luck in places like California, an entire culture was uprooted and died a slow death. Steinbeck continued to write and gain popularity rivaled only by Samuel Clements.
This week I came across another novel that is similar in nature, where an entire culture is being destroyed, this time by greedy, government-backed, coal mine owners. The book is called, Strange As This Weather Has Been. The writer’s name is Ann Pancake. And no, her name is not a pseudonym. She got her PhD from the University of Washington and hails from West Virginia. She tells in fictional form what is happening to the American landscape in that part of the country.
Instead of drilling a mine shaft inside a mountain and extracting the coal, these good ol’ boys, the captains of industry, blow the tops off of mountains. The owners tell you that it’s a more cost-effective method of doing business and that‘s why they do it. What they choose not tell you is that the toxic material from the operation, including such things as mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium, copper, selenium, chromium, and nickel flows into haphazardly-constructed containment ponds. The slurry leeches out during good weather and gushes out on rainy days. The sluice then flows down the side of the mountain and into local streams, polluting the water supply. Local dead zones are created; smaller than the zone off the Louisiana coast, but just as toxic. That’s not all. These wonderful American entrepreneurs blow up the tops of mountains using the same ingredients that Timothy McVey used in Oklahoma. The reverberating shockwaves from the frequent blasts are felt by citizens living below the mountain, down in the hollows. Cracks appear in the foundation of their houses, ceiling plaster repeatedly cascades down onto floors that buckle and shift. Sheds and other small structures are washed away by the frequent floods from up top. Those poor individuals are left owning a less-than-worthless home that’s often been in their family for perhaps 150 years and longer. The land and houses are now all but uninhabitable.
The southern part of West Virginia and the eastern part of Kentucky is where the devastation is taking place and Ms. Pancake walks you through the local history of why the land means so much to those folks. By putting in a garden and harvesting the food that nature supplies on those mountains those people of Appalachia had all they needed to survive, that is until the coal companies decided their stockholders had to enjoy more wealth. But, in the end, there's an old saying: whatever goes around, comes around.
Note: For more information check out these websites: www.ohvec.org; www.kftc.org; www.ilovemountains.org; and www.crmw.net.