News-Record.com

The following is a Counterpoint column.

By Carol Moore

Please support the Appalachian Mountains Preservation Act introduced by state Rep. Pricey Harrison. House Bill 340 will prohibit public utilities from burning mountaintops for coal removal to produce electricity in North Carolina.

I am a North Carolinian and owner of mountain property on the Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains.

To look out across a flattened piece of land that once was the top of a mountain and see nothing but dead earth — devoid of life — touches the very soul of my being.

The feeling is not easily articulated. It is primal, ancestral, and as ancient and sacred as the mountains. The core of my being screams it is wrong to destroy a mountain, and it is wrong to destroy the culture of the people who live on mountains and in hollows.

The plight of the mountains became more personal last fall. A utility company wants a natural gas pipeline right-of-way on my property. Its representative tells me my land is “unimproved timberland.”

I cannot imagine, of course, how anyone could improve mountain timberland. The company plans to condemn a portion of my land under the guise of eminent domain.

No matter how many times I tell the company to stay off my land, it ignores me.
I can only hope for a bumper crop of copperheads this year to assist me in dissuading them from trespassing. My mountain neighbors tell me, “You do what the coal and gas companies say to do. That is just the way it is.”

Please cast a magnifying glass on the plight of the mountains and mountain people who have suffered exploitation for generations. Empower those of us who only want to grow trees, wildflowers, wildlife and to “walk gently” across Mother Earth.

It is only a matter of time before a coal company wants a piece of my land.
Please make the Appalachian Mountains Preservation bill a law. It will help me and others protect the mountains for all of us.

The writer lives in McLeansville.