Parts of this entry also appear on the Kentuckians For The Commonwealth blog

Hearing the stories of the devastation caused by Mountaintop Removal coal mining is what first got me involved in social justice. A few years later, I continue to be outraged by what my friends in Eastern Kentucky deal with daily, but I now also find myself enthralled by what is happening in my hometown, Louisville, with coal ash.

In February, I first learned of E.ON's plans to add a 60-acre coal-combustion waste (CCW) landfill adjacent to their Cane Run Rd. power plant in South Louisville, five miles away from the neighborhood I grew up in and from where I now live. Coal ash is a new issue to me and to many folks, but one thing's for sure, it's not the kind of stuff you want in your neighborhood or next to your city's water source. Coal ash contains concentrated amounts of heavy metals and other pollutants that have been found to cause cancer and other health problems in humans. A 2007 EPA report found that those living near coal ash dumps have a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer. There is already a coal ash impoundment at the Cane Run Rd. site that the EPA considers “high hazard,” meaning that a dam break is likely to cause significant damage, including loss of life.

This post was written by Greg Capillo, a student at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky

On Friday April 2nd, the Benefits Committee at Western Kentucky University (WKU) called an emergency meeting and reversed 2 previous decisions; it extended benefits previously reserved for spouses to "other qualified dependents" including gay and lesbian couples. In the faculty email, the committee head mentioned "feedback" that the committee had heard regarding the decision.

That feedback was in actuality a movement 5 years in the making that united people from all levels of the university community; faculty, staff, and students stood together to strive for justice. On Friday, we achieved that.

When people first began petitioning for partner benefits at WKU, we knew we had a challenge. No president of a state university in Kentucky would want to stick their neck on the line and make an executive decision about this issue. After all, we live in a state that overwhelmingly voted to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Yet we also knew that we didn't have a progressive base on our Board of Regents that the more cosmopolitan universities like NKU, UK, and U of L, schools that already passed domestic partner benefits, might have. The issue was placed squarely in the lap of the benefits committee, and on two separate occasions, the benefits committee had voted to deny benefits. If this was going to happen, it was going to involve direct action from the bottom up of the university clamoring for change.

For the fifth year in a row, hundreds of Kentuckians gathered at the Capitol in Frankfort for I Love Mountains Day, a large rally and lobbying day organized by Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC). About 850 people from all across the state, and even a few friends from neighboring states, marched and rallied on Feb. 11 on the steps of the Capitol in support of the Stream Saver Bill, a bill that would make it illegal for companies to dump mining wastes into streams and valleys, making it much more difficult and costly for Mountaintop Removal (MTR) mining to take place. Two versions of the bill have been filed: House Bill 416 filed by Rep. Mary Lou Marzian and Senate Bill 139 filed by Sen. Kathy Stein.

Hello, SEACers! As hundreds of you are getting ready to attend regional Powershift summits across the country, I'm just beginning to dive into the great work that SEAC does. My name's Beth Bissmeyer, and I've just been hired as SEAC's new Kentucky Organizer. Louisville, Kentucky is home, and that's where I'll be based. I have the awesome job of organizing with youth across the bluegrass state on campaigns to end Mountaintop Removal mining and campaigns to promote clean energy policy, working with already-established leaders and bringing new folks into the environmental justice mix.

I started my foray into social justice the same way that a lot of you probably did: I was exposed to an issue and was compelled to learn more, to do something. For me, it was Mountaintop Removal coal mining, an issue I first heard about while a student at Berea College. Learning that such an injustice was occurring just a few hours from my home in the state that I love, I was outraged and wanted to take action. I became active with Kentuckians For The Commonwealth—a social justice group in the state—and learned more about mining and energy issues, as well as doing voter empowerment work. Like many of you, I organized on my campus and in the surrounding community on justice issues and became more active and engaged the more I learned and the more stories I heard from those directly impacted.

Doing work that you are passionate about, work that lets you work with amazing people and is aimed at improving the world for all its inhabitants isn't as common for people as it should be, so you can be damn sure I consider myself lucky to get to do such work as the Kentucky Organizer and to learn and grow with this organization.

See you at Appalachia Powershift! http://appalachia.powershift09.org/

Take care,
Beth