Appalachian Heritage

This Side of the Mountain George Brosi At the Southern Festival of Books in Memphis last October, the distinguished environmental writer, Barry Lopez, lamented the fact that neither candidate in the recent presidential election included any issues related to biology in his platform. His comment reminded me of how many other issues have been neglected which are especially urgent in Appalachia. For example, the Appalachian Mountain region is the part of the country most dramatically affected by mountaintop-removal coal mining, and a clear response to this issue exists—abolition. The abuse of addictive prescription drugs cries out for attention, and one of my students came up with a remarkably simple idea which could help tremendously. We should require that abused prescription drugs be administered in small quantities by health-care agencies— hospitals, clinics or home-health services—instead of sold to patients in bulk by pharmacies. Our region needs more public recreation facilities and less unemployment. A fabulous precedent exists for developing parks and helping people. The CCC, which was active in the thirties, has left us a legacy of many beautiful buildings constructed from native materials. Creating an agency like the CCC could make park development much more attainable. One way to reduce the expense of land acquisition for parks would be to allow some local people to continue to live within park boundaries if they would agree to abide by easement regulations designed to keep the parks beautiful and authentic. Additional land for parks could be obtained by requiring that beneficiaries of flood insurance claims not rebuild in the floodplain , but rather cede their land for park use. Then taxpayers would not have to pay for property owners to rebuild in the flood plain, only to see their buildings slam into bridges and wreak havoc during future floods. An agency like the CCC could also address the problem of eradicating invasive plant species, and it could build public water and sewer systems, something which would improve the immediate quality of life for residents while addressing significant pollution problems. Now that the election season is over, we need to redouble our efforts to re-energize the political process to address key issues. ...