"The sustainable and hopeful path?"

We at Shepherd's Corner, whose mission is "seeking to recreate the land's wholeness by rediscovering the life-giving harmony between the people and the land [where] people of all backgrounds can learn to become reconnected with the natural environment, themselves, one another and the Creator who made them all" are very concerned about the issue of "Mountain Top Removal."

This is a method of mining now in use in the Appalachian Mountains of our neighboring states, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. Forests are felled, then blasting breaks up the mountain top to a depth of 800 to 1000 feet. Machinery levels it. The boulders and soil are thrown down the mountainside, burying valleys, streams and memories of the displaced people and their way of life. Homesteads, cemeteries, communities, unique plant and wildlife habitats -- the entire landscape -- are covered by landslides of mud and debris. All this for access to thin seams of coal.

Sister Robbie Pentecost, OSF, the executive director of the Catholic Committee of Appalachia, sees a moral issue: "This mining practice is destroying communities and lives."

Representatives of the mining industry claim that this mining provides jobs for and makes additional land available for industry. The companies assure residents who are about to be forced to move, that quality reclamation of the land will provide level land for future housing, schools and industry. They also emphasize that corporations involved in this kind of mining are paying hundreds of millions of dollars in state taxes.

The folks who live on the lower slopes of the mountain see a very different reality: floods, landslides of toxic wastes and poisoned wells. What was once a beautiful place to live has been decapitated; leaving a wasteland and a constant reminder of what they have lost.

The local people find themselves helpless in making any effective response. As soon as those who have been unwillingly affected seek compensation for the harm done, the mining companies simply declare bankruptcy. Where profit is the paramount concern, justice vanishes.

In a Pastoral Message on Sustainable Communities in Appalachia, "At Home in the Web of Life," promulgated December 15, 1995, the Catholic Bishops of Appalachia wrote: "The sustainable and hopeful path sees Appalachia as a community of life, in which people and land are woven together as part of Earth's vibrant creativity, in turn revealing God's own creativity. In the vision of this path, the mountain forests are sacred cathedrals, the holy dwelling of abundant life-forms which all need each other, including us humans, with all revealing God's awesome majesty and tender embrace . . . the people are God's co-creators, called to form sustainable communities, and to develop sustainable livelihoods, all in sacred creative communion with land and forest and water and air, indeed with all Earth's holy creatures."

What has become of "this sustainable and hopeful path?" What can we do to help?

* Address seriously the care of creation as a spiritual duty;

* Pray that justice will be done;

* Impress upon your elected officials and the EPA that the right to live in a healthy environment is a fundamental human right.

* Learn more about Mountain Top Removal at webpages.charter.net/crmw and its links to other sites.


~ Sr. Pat McCabe, O.P.