Actress Ashley Judd Demands End to Mountain-Top, Strip Mining

Actress Ashely Judd branded mountain-top mining with "the rape of Appalachia" in a June 9 Luncheon speech calling for a national effort to halt it.

"Mountain-top mining would never happen in other mountains in the United States," she said, citing the Rockies as an example of where it would never occur.

Judd said she is proud to be a "hillbilly" from eastern Kentucky. She is also a graduate of the University of Kentucky and an alumna of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

While aghast at the deep well oil disaster in the Gulf, she said the many years of destruction of the mountains of Appalachia, "the oldest in North America and maybe the world," was worse and called on the press to make that known to the American people.

She called on President Obama to "fly over the Appalachian mountains."

Over the last 30 years "1,500 waterways in Appalachia have been lost," she said. "Every body of water is under advisement on contamination."

Judd traced the origin of the destruction to 1887 when companies began buying the mineral rights -- coal, gas and oil -- of farmers in Kentucky and West Virginia. She said the disaster began as companies began leasing land at 50 cents an acre for mining while leaving the owners to pay the taxes. She said some companies have strip-mined "without the consent of the owners."

Her main target was mountain-top mining, but she said some companies strip mine and do a poor job of restoring an area after they have all the coal. She cited one that converted an area into a golf course and asked whether anyone knew mountain dwellers who play the game.

Not only do coal companies assault the environment, but they also use machinery that reduces the number of mining jobs, she said. The companies can no longer promise 100,000 jobs, she said, but they use 4 million pounds of explosives daily.

When asked what she would do to eliminate mountain-top and strip mining, she summoned "the press, the press, the press." She said the health of many Appalachian dwellers suffers.

"They can't use the tap water," Judd said, because of the pollution. Asked about clean coal technology, she called it an oxymoron. All this should be on the front pages and stressed on newscasts, she said.