Damon Morgan

[tegdoh]

Our first stop on the Appalachian Tour was to meet Damon Morgan. Mr. Morgan is an 84-year old retiree who returned to his family land after a career on the railways. His plans for a quiet retirement were scuttled when mining companies began surveying his land for mountain top removal to get at the coal below. Mr. Morgan has received an education by

Comments

[vjs2259]

Oh, thank you so much for posting that. The landscapes and accents and colours 'mind me so much of home. I'll look up the organization and see what I can do to help.
My Gammy took me once on a trip thru small towns and winding roads and forest, and down into the hollers to visit some relatives; I can't remember who or what relation they were. We must have stopped three or four places. But there was one couple who lived in the fold between two mountains, and there was a mine setting up on one rise above them. Erosion was ruining the water, and killing the trees, and mud kept sliding down into their fields and threatening the chicken house. They had a picture on the mantel; their only son in an Army uniform. The picture was carefully centered on a lace doily. Nice people, had no idea what they were going to do. They wanted to stay, and pass the land on to their son. Didn't look likely to me even at that young age. I couldn't understand how you could own the land, but not what was underneath.

[tegdoh]

I couldn't understand how you could own the land, but not what was underneath.

I know, it's a travesty that can be traced back to the Civil War, when veterans from both sides returned to Appalachia to find their farms and homesteads devastated. They went deeply into debt to rebuild, and 50 or so years later, their families were happy enough to sell the mineral rights dirt cheap in order to keep the land. Of course, they never dreamed that the mountains would one day be mowed down like so much grass.

It can be depressing, but knowing that people like Mr. Morgan are out there trying to do something about it gives me hope. I just wish that some of the big environmental groups paid half the attention to MTR that they do to drilling in ANWR.

[sspring92]

It is absolutely infuriating and frightening what the Government and big business can do. We have problems with eminent domain in this area. People lose their homes and Ranches to schools, highways, parking lots, power lines or housing tracts. A developer just has to go in and convince the county that the 100 homes they want to build on someone else's land will bring in more tax dollars to the county than that one farm. The developer then gives the land owner what they feel is fair for the land, and the owner has no choice but to take it! I don't understand how taking someones land, or the mineral rights that are underneath it can possibly be legal or constitutional!

[tegdoh]

Yeah, it's nuts. There are counties in Kentucky and West Virginia where up to 75-85% of the land is owned by outside interests. The people who actually live there have very few remedies to keep their land from being destroyed.