We returned to Hueysville and spoke went and spoke with Lowell, another key leader who works with Rick. Lowell and his family have also lived in Floyd County for numerous generations—in fact, he and Rick are family. The two men showed us around the property, including a place behind Lowell’s house where the mining company stripped the land of any trees or top soil but did not mine it. For various reasons, they decided that it was no longer necessary to get the coal that was in this particular section of land. The land is now seeded with grass that is not native to Kentucky; the grass will probably die soon. This grass covers an area that used to be filled with trees. Lowell described how he used to know all of the best places to find rare mushrooms that only grow in this area and how many of these have been stripped away now. After the company stripped the hill of trees, it built a pond on the land in order to catch and hold the run-off from the hill. This pond was a strange color and smelled a bit like sewage—Lowell and Rick spoke of how the water was filled with so many chemicals that it was eating through some of the metal pipes lower on the hill.
Like the others we spoke with, the damage done to Lowell’s property through the mining is not limited to the land—explosions have affected his home to the extent that his floor is now buckling and no longer even. This is a result of foundational damage caused by the blasting of the nearby strip-mining work. He estimates that it would take close to $8,000.00 for repairs.
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