Prayer On The Mountain Analysis

From the Flick of a Light Switch to the Destruction of Mountains
How does flicking on a light switch relate to the destruction of some of the oldest mountains in the world? A good question, related largely to this one: What does a meeting of Catholics called “Prayer on the Mountain,” an article writer and blogger named Erik Reece, seventy-seven commercial fishing groups, the Coal River Valley community, seven hundred Alaskan hunting and angling groups, the National Council of Churches, two hundred chefs and restaurant owners, and lots of community members all have in common? These two very different questions relate to one thing: coal companies that destroy the environment and communities in order to mine more coal at a cheaper price and in less time. How are the coal companies going about such a task? They are using a technique called strip mining, or sometimes mountaintop removal. How does it work? Well, that depends on where the mining is taking place, which is addressed later. But first, why are there so many people against this technique?
To explain that, here is Teri Blanton’s story. Teri Blanton is a sixty year old grandmother who grew up in Dayhoit, a small town in Kentucky. When Blanton was growing up in Dayhoit, everyone helped each other out; they even had a small community garden on one of the few places where the …show more content…
They also installed a pump-and-treat water system at the now abandoned plant that had been rebuilding the equipment. This pump filters out some of the volatile organic compounds and releases them, along with carcinogens, into the air. The plan was that a strong wind would blow away the chemicals in the air. Blanton, however, observed that in Dayhoit, a town in the valley of a mountain, there is hardly any wind at all. The remaining chemicals would stay in the air in the area and were not blown away as intended. Blanton took her children, packed up and