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NEWS BRIEFS
Residents of Telluride, Col., raising money to help Twilight, W.Va.
TWILIGHT, W.VA. – Twilight, W.Va. and Telluride, CO are both mountain communities, but until recently they had no connections and scant similarities.
The median income in Twilight is $35,557 and the median home value is $62,130. In Telluride, the median income is $54,813 and the median home value is $2,605,500. Twilight has about 200 households and Telluride about 2500, including residences of Oprah Winfrey, Daryl Hannah and Tom Cruise.
Despite the glaring disparities in prosperity, both communities know that mountains matter. The mountains around Telluride are the snow-covered, tourist-drawing Rockies. The mountains around Twilight are the besieged and endangered mountains of Central Appalachia.
A newly kindled bond between the two towns may offer up ways to save the mountains around Twilight and improve the town’s prosperity. Telluride residents are helping to raise money for an Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC) project in Twilight.
Hannah said, “Helping the community in Twilight, West Virginia to purchase just 9 acres is to protect an entire town from evisceration, prevent a mountain from being blown to bits and is such a brilliant creative way to herald an end to mountaintop removal.”
Hannah was speaking about a project she learned about when Telluride hosted the 33rd annual Mountainfilm in Telluride in late May. The documentary On Coal River was one of the films juried into the festival. The film documents the work of Coal River Mountain Watch volunteer Ed Wiley and others to move an elementary school away from the dangers associated with close-by coal mining activities.
Filmmaker Adams Wood and (OVEC organizer Maria Gunnoe attended the festival, speaking about efforts to end mountaintop removal coal mining. Gunnoe was a keynote speaker at the event’s “Awareness into Action” plenary, which attracted about 600 people.
Gunnoe told audience members about mountaintop removal’s debilitating effects on human health, communities and ecosystems. She noted the increased flooding communities can face after mountaintop removal destroys nearby forests. She informed crowds about what the coal companies had done to depopulate and erase many communities, including Lindytown, a now-gone community that had been just up the road from Twilight. Gunnoe spoke of OVEC’s efforts to purchase land in Twilight – an attempt to save Twilight from the same fate as Lindytown.
Gunnoe noted that while OVEC has already purchased a small amount of land and a building in the community, the group is raising funds to purchase more land, land that coal companies need in order to expand nearby mountaintop removal mines and coal processing facilities. If the group succeeds in obtaining more land, then OVEC could save the town of Twilight, which is under threat if MTR expansion continues.
The building OVEC already owns in Twilight will for now be used as a meeting space and a community evacuation center should flooding occur in lower-lying areas of the town. Dreams for the building include its use as a training center where people rekindle traditional mountain culture and craftsmanship and explore ways to improve local prosperity.
As Gunnoe spoke at one festival event, people passed the hat, raising nearly $3,000 for OVEC’s continued efforts to purchase land in Twilight. Since the festival ended, efforts to support the project have increased.
On June 13, the Town of Telluride Town Council sent a letter, signed by Mayor Stuart Fraser, to OVEC, which is based in Huntington, W.Va.: “The Town of Telluride Town Council would like to express its strong support for your efforts to stop the coal industry from abusing the land and people, particularly the campaign to save the small town of Twilight, West Virginia from being depopulated as a result of mountaintop removal coal mining. The Town of Telluride stands in solidarity with the belief that no town, forest or mountain stream should be decimated by this coal mining method.”
Days later, a public service announcement (PSA) began airing on Telluride TV. In the PSA, Gunnoe invites people to visit www.mtrstopshere.com to learn more about and donate to OVEC’s efforts to purchase land in Twilight. The PSA can also be seen on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ejo2F3hkzw.
“The destruction of mountains and communities in Appalachia is a crime that every American should be ashamed of. Buy a piece of the future today; these nine acres can stop MTR dead in its tracks and save Twilight from becoming another scar on the soul of our nation by Massey Energy,” said Jerry Cope, who also attended the film festival.
