History

The Appalachian region boasts a long, proud history of resistance by individuals, organizations, and alliances working to stop strip mining abuses in the region, beginning in the 1960s. The Appalachian Coalition Against Strip Mining formalized some of these efforts in the 1970s by working with a national coalition of groups from coalfields across the country for federal legislation to ban the destructive practice. Groups fought against the inclusion of a mountaintop removal variance in the federal law and also worked for steep slope limits to mining and other protections for communities.  Despite those efforts, the final bill that passed, the Surface Mining Regulation and Enforcement Act (SMCRA) of 1977, included a mountaintop removal variance and did not include other provisions like a steep slope limit. Experience told activists that coal companies would take full advantage of this loophole and so many coalition groups called on President Carter to veto the legislation, to no avail.

Thus, regional coalitions and alliances are hardly new for the region, but rather past collaboration provides a framework for political change that can be modeled on the successes and failures of the Appalachian Alliance, Save the Land and People, the Council of the Southern Mountains, and other similar bodies.

Over the past decade, organizations in Appalachia have picked up where these groups have left off, working together to fight the abuses of mountaintop removal made possible through SMCRA through grassroots organizing and leadership development, state and national policy work, state and federal litigation, extensive use of the media, and technical assistance.  In many instances, the joint work has been informal, but because of the extreme political and economic power of the coal industry, groups fighting this battle agreed that no single organization could win alone. Thus, The Alliance for Appalachia was formed.

The Alliance for Appalachia of today, formed in 2006, had the seeds of its beginnings at OVEC’s 6th annual Summit for the Mountains--a four-day event held in conjunction with the 15th annual Heartwood Forest Council gathering, May 26-29, 2006, in Ripley, WV. The theme of the event was “Healing Mountains.” It focused on the problems associated with and strategies for ending mountaintop removal mining.  Several hundred individuals representing groups throughout Central Appalachia held workshops and group meetings to share knowledge and develop strategy at that event.

In December of 2006, staff from several groups met to discuss the possibility of developing a coordinated strategy to help increase our groups’ capacity and impact on the issue.  In 2007, the first face-to-face meeting that included staff and community leaders was held at Jenny Wiley State Park, in Prestonsburg, KY.  It took an entire year’s work for groups to agree on the goals, structure, leadership, standing committees, and strategy of what soon became known as The Alliance for Appalachia.  Additionally, in 2006 and 2007, groups provided fly-overs, citizen testimony and on the ground mountaintop removal tours in Kentucky and West Virginia for foundation program officers, many of whom became Alliance allies in the work.