Fracking Waste Disposal: Still A Hot Mess
The slogan for Estill County is “where the bluegrass kisses the mountains.” But since 2015 the county, population 15,000, is widely known as the place where radioactive material generated by the oil and gas industry in a process known as fracking was dumped near some schools. As the Ohio Valley ReSource reported in 2016, tons of […]
In Rural WV, Sexual Assault Victims Face Unique Hurdles
Each Thursday in Fayette County, West Virginia, Twanna Warner-Burton stands before a group of people gathered by WorkForce West Virginia, the state agency managing unemployment. But she’s not there to talk about jobs. As a rural advocate for sexual violence victims, Warner-Burton focuses on introducing herself to the group and […]
Q&A: Writer Explores Why Appalachia’s Economic System Keeps People ‘Poor, Sick, and Stuck on Coal’
Gwynn Guilford is a reporter for Quartz, a business news site. She specializes in writing about the economy. Guilford spent 10 months researching Appalachia’s economy for an article called “The 100-year capitalist experiment that keeps Appalachia poor, sick, and stuck on coal.” Guilford dug into the history of the region’s […]
Weaponizing Appalachia Race, white privilege, and denial in America
Little known fact: apparently all white people are from Appalachia. Not really of course, but you’d think we were after listening to how most of us respond whenever someone brings up the idea of white privilege: the notion that whites, on balance, have advantages over people of color in things […]
Trump Budget Eliminated ‘Sweat Equity’ and 10 Other Rural Housing Programs
Despite pushback from the House and Senate on a similar proposal released last year, the Trump administration again recommends doing away with a majority of the nation’s rural housing programs. The Trump administration’s budget and infrastructure proposals fail to meet the housing needs of low-income communities and will decrease the […]
Uncertain Status: Immigration Changes Leave Some in Limbo
With Congress in a heated immigration debate, the Ohio Valley region is adding to its immigration courts. Sources within the Justice Department say Kentucky will have a new immigration court operating in Louisville as soon as April, and Ohio is adding additional judges to handle deportations and other immigration cases. […]
The Shocking Economic Cost of the Opioid Crisis on WV
How big is the opioid crisis in West Virginia? Here’s an economic answer: If you took all of the money that Congress recently approved to fight the opioid epidemic across the entire nation — $6 billion — and poured it into West Virginia, it still wouldn’t plug the hole opioids […]
Remapping the Landscape of Despair
“I don’t know what Alanis Morissette would make of an Oxy factory in the middle of a county with a raging opioid problem, but ‘ironic’ doesn’t quite do it justice. It’s shameless, is what it is.” Here in the Catskills, we all live in the shadow of the opioid trade. […]
Video Call Blues in the Knox County Jail
From the experience of a father’s forgiveness expressed with the pat of a hand, to a mother fixing your hair before the homecoming dance, to a brother holding you back from a schoolyard fight, our relationships with others are comprised of our shared sensory experiences. These formative life moments consist […]
Living With Black Lung: Coal Miners Caught In A Surging Epidemic
The central Appalachian coalfields are in the middle of an unprecedented epidemic of severe black lung disease. In a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association federal researchers released the results of a study conducted at just three black lung clinics. The study confirmed 416 cases of […]