The Alliance for Appalachia

Ashley Judd, who recently narrated a television ad about mountaintop removal for The Alliance for Appalachia, continued her work speaking out against this national tragedy by appearing at a press conference hosted by NRDC. Excellent coverage can be found on NRDC’s blog, with a few excerpts below. To view photos of Ms. Judd visit here and be sure to check out C-SPAN’s live-streaming of her remarks.

“I am very proud to be a Kentuckian.  And, of the many things my Creator has seen fit to allow me to accomplish, being an eastern Kentuckian is the simple fact that brings me the most honor, the greatest sense of self.  I love and am proud of being a hillbilly.”

“And it gets bigger with every Appalachian mountaintop that is blown up, every holler that is filled, every stream that is buried, every wild thing that is wantonly and recklessly killed, every ecosystem that is diminished, every job that is lost to mechanization, every family that is pitted one against the other by the state-sanctioned, federal government-supported coal industry-operated rape of Appalachia: mountaintop removal coal mining.”

“I am here to tell you, mountaintop removal coal mining simply would not happen in any other mountain range in the United States.  It is utterly inconceivable that the Smokies would be blasted, the Rockies razed, the Sierra Nevadas flattened, that bombs the equivalent to Hiroshima would be detonated every single week for three decades.  The fact that the Appalachians are the Appalachians makes this environmental genocide possible and permissible.”