The following story first appeared in the Spring 1999 Glenmary Challenge.
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Journalists Glimpse Sustainable Paths in Appalachia
By Father John S. Rausch

Journalists visit a chip mill (at left) in Careyville, Tenn., that pumps $12 million into the local economy.

As the leaves fell last November from the trees of Eastern Kentucky, they revealed the altered face of Appalachia to a group of religious journalists. They saw idyllic vistas interrupted by high walls from strip mining; majestic mountains embracing both the palatial houses of the rich and the nearby rusting mobile homes of the poor; and roads that carry plant workers to light manufacturing jobs, correctional officers to prisons and truckloads of timber and coal out of the region.

This Appalachian Press Project, sponsored by Catholic and ecumenical groups, invited journalists to glimpse the beauty and potential of the Appalachian regions of Kentucky and Tennessee. It also challenged the 11 participants to see the realities of the region with the eyes of the Appalachian bishops’ 1995 pastoral, At Home in the Web of Life. The November 8-12 Project targeted journalists because of their role in shaping public opinion.

At Home in the Web of Life describes the unsettling trends in Appalachia as a sea change that reflects the larger American culture. Describing society’s patterns of overconsumption and the indifference to creation and community as a “culture of death”—words borrowed from John Paul II—the bishops proposed a new, sustainable direction that affirms the intertwined “web of life.” Appalachia, as a microcosm of the global economy, presents a window through which to view the subtle effects of the economic system, and it highlights the system’s contrasts in gripping, graphic detail.

Eleven journalists and guides drove a van and a pickup truck to scheduled stops introducing them to diverse groups of corporations and organizations. Time was also provided for informal talk with local folks. Three stops, however, symbolically captured the most pressing issues of Appalachia and of American culture: a chip mill (environment), a herb co-op (community development) and a monastery (spirituality).

The Royal Blue Chip Mill. Owned by the Champion International Corporation, this chip mill in Careyville, Tennessee, annually purchases enough low-grade pulpwood to produce 300,000 tons of primary chips for making paper. The plant debarks and chips 7,000 acres of forest each year to supply paper mills in Canton, North Caroline; Courtland, Alabama; and other outside domestic mills. The 12-worker operation pumps $12 million into the local economy primarily by purchasing red and white oak, yellow poplar and varieties of pine from local landowners. 

While Champion employs professionals who manage its forests with respect to the environment, local woodlot owners and subcontractors often neglect the best management practices when logging. This situation exemplifies the link between the environment and the marginalized. People having few alternatives generally exploit nature to earn their livelihood. The workers who strip the coal or clear-cut the forest frequently feel regret for the tracks they leave behind.

Environmental concerns in Appalachia directly affect jobs, water, the land, communities and the spirit of the people. Demand for timber and coal now faces increased competition from the global economy. Appalachia, which breathes to the rhythm of extractive industries, now searches for ways to blend jobs with the environment—something that will demand creativity plus a change in the consumption patterns of the United States and other industrialized nations.

The Mountain Tradition Cooperative. The Kentucky road to Linda Heller’s house in Leslie County winds past Hell-for-Certain and Devil’s Jump. The 11-mile drive requires 45 minutes. When the journalists arrived dazzled by the views but dizzied from the drive, Linda greeted them with hot spiced wine warmed on an open campfire. Her friends later picked bluegrass tunes, offering hospitality and entertainment with down-home music.

Linda belongs to the Mountain Tradition Cooperative, a group of a dozen folks who market herbs and roots from the forest. “Wildcrafting,” the practice of digging herbs from the forest, attests to the heritage of Appalachia. Early settlers, in the absence of doctors, relied on medicinal herbs to treat most diseases from the common cold to constipation. Now a new generation is counting on these same herbs for their livelihood.

Located in Leslie County, where the poverty rate hovers near 35 percent, the Mountain Tradition Co-op offers an alternative to recruiting businesses from outside the area. Local counties court businesses by offering the incentives of tax abatements, industrial parks, municipal bonds and the promise of a docile work force.Tied to the community by this thin thread of economic perks, an outside company feels little allegiance to the area. In contrast, a co-op, whose members live and work in the community and whose products or services harmonize with creation, builds a stable economic base for the future.

The Appalachian bishops in At Home in the Web of Life, define sustainable communities as “...communities where people and the rest of nature can live together in harmony and not rob future generations.” Digging herbs for healing, cooperating in community and working for the restoration of nature—all move in the direction of sustainability. Whether “low-tech” or “high,” the challenge to local business development revolves around raising today’s living and spiritual standards so the next generation has a future.

The Mount Tabor Monastery and Retreat Center, built by Benedictine Sisters, sits halfway up a mountain just outside Prestonsburg, Kentucky. When the tour reached the center after the third day, participants found an oasis of calm in the midst of God’s creation. Mass the next morning was in a chapel bathed in sunlight from large glass windows that offered the mountains as a backdrop for celebration.

Twenty years ago the Appalachian bishops in their first pastoral, This Land Is Home to Me, called for “centers of reflection and prayer in the service of action throughout the region.” The idea emphasized a venue where the marginalized and poor could meet and analyze the problems of the area in the context of prayer. In the midst of all work, all struggles of life, people need holy ground to nurture the spiritual and sustain their spirits. The Mount Tabor center, inspired by that admonition, combines a space “to be” before continuing the journey toward sustainability.

The Appalachian Press Project provided a triptych of salient Appalachian issues: the environment, community development and spirituality. Along the tour, while participants discussed these complex issues, they also met people who offered glimmers of new life—like early crocuses defying the late spring snow.

Folks met Eula Hall, a determined local woman who started the Mud Creek Clinic in Floyd County. They talked with John Rosenberg, a dedicated lawyer who represents the poor. They lunched with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, “a statewide citizens’ organization working for a new balance of power and a just society.” They also heard from Save Our Cumberland Mountains and their efforts to police environmental problems. A visit to David School reminded them that some institutions care for kids with special needs. And a craft co-op, featuring traditional mountain crafts, challenged the culture of plastic. All around the region, tour participants recognized islands of hope.

Franciscan Sister Robbie Pentecost, a principal tour guide from the Appalachian Ministries Educational Resource Center, summed up the tour: “Folks took away a sense of the values, sustainable values they could apply in their own communities back home.” ?

John Rausch, a Glenmary priest at the Appalachian Ministry Educational Resource Center in Berea, Ky., teaches, writes and organizes cooperatives.