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A long time ago, Patricia Bragg’s grandmother had told her, “You got
to fight for what you believe in.” They were words that Patricia never
forgot. But she never thought she’d have to live by them. Not till a cold
day near Christmas in 1994.
All through the summer, Trish, as her friends called her, had watched
a new house rise at the edge of her garden. She and her husband, Dewey,
a disabled miner, knew they could never afford anything better than their
green-shingled rambler tucked under the mountain.
Trish had known Susan Curry, the new homeowner, since she was
fourteen. Now Susan was an elementary schoolteacher, with a husband
and a baby. As Susan’s tan clapboard home rose, all fresh with new lumber
and possibilities, Trish joined Susan in plotting the decorating scheme.
It became their dollhouse: Trish the little girl dreaming, Susan the
fortunate doll. Walls were painted in the palette of country decorating
magazines: china blue, pink, peach, forest green. Teddy-bear wallpaper
trimmed the kitchen, while stuffed bears sat on the cupboard tops. Of-
ten the phone would ring in one of the houses: “Come down and see.”
Or “What do you think of this?” During the summer, Trish’s mother had
come from North Carolina after her husband died. Additional loads of
laundry had required more water. So Dewey ran a water line from the
old well on Susan’s property.
Christmas was nearing by the time the paint had dried and carpeting
was complete. Moving day dawned blue and cold. Trish and Dewey helped
Susan and her husband, Roy, carry in boxes and furniture, and late in the
afternoon friends arrived for the housewarming. One by one, they were
given the grand tour, exclaiming in admiration as Susan and Trish showed
them the homey details so carefully chosen.
Someone needed a glass of water, so Roy grabbed a glass from a kitchen cabinet and held it under the faucet. But no water came out. He
rushed back to the living room. Trish called Dewey, who had gone home,
put off by the crowd of people. Dewey came over and used electrical tes-
ters on the pump, which was working fine. Out the door they went to the
well. Dewey threw a rock down, and what came back was that hollow
sound of emptiness.
The group stood in puzzled silence for a moment. Many were miners
or retired miners. One mentioned deep mining. Dewey explained: “The
longwall machines are huge. They keep going straight forward. Through
anything in their path.” Anything included aquifers—the channels that
carry water underground.
Yes, one person recalled. A few miles down the road at the Shady
Woods community, about thirty people had lost their water the year be-
fore. Now what water could be had from the community well wasn’t fit for
drinking. A deep mine was blamed there, too.
Such a crisis on moving-in day overcame Susan. She began to sob.
Trish, Dewey, and Kayla Bragg lived in this house in 1994 when an Arch Coal mine
dried up their neighbors’ wells.
Trish hugged her. Later Susan would compose a letter to state mining reg-
ulators, trying in her reserved manner to say how she felt that day: “I hope
you understand how I feel: It’s not right to have a brand new home and
not have any water.”
––––––
Trish had come to Pie, in West Virginia’s southern coalfields, nineteen
years earlier, as a seventeen-year-old bride. She had grown up poor in
Mooresville, North Carolina, near Charlotte. Rich in love for her parents
and brother and sister, Trish didn’t realize how deprived she was until years
later in a teaching exercise. Step forward, the social scientist told the group
of about fifty, if you had more than three books as a child; step forward if
your family subscribed to a magazine; and so on. At the end, everyone ex-
cept Trish and one other person had stepped forward again and again. The
two of them stood alone where they had begun, the most deprived of all.
When Trish was fifteen, Dewey Bragg, a lanky coal miner from Pie,
thirteen years older, came to visit one of his sisters, who lived next to Trish.
He was smitten, and Trish glowed from the warmth of his devotion. Dew-
ey had nine brothers and sisters, and Trish, on her first visit to West Vir-
ginia, was overwhelmed by so many relatives. That first night, Trish slept
on the porch. As she drifted off to sleep, she looked up at the modest
mountains embracing her and saw God in their majesty. Into her slumber
came a new feeling of peace. Pie was now her home.
Dewey and Trish married in June of her seventeenth year. The next
spring, Trish’s mother-in-law took her for walks along the hillsides, point-
ing out ramps and other wild plants that could be picked and cooked for
dinner. She and Dewey planted their first garden. Eager to prove herself a
good homemaker, she set about canning her mother-in-law’s sauerkraut
recipe. Only she didn’t realize Dewey’s mother left the lids loose. Trish
awoke at 3:00 a.m. to a steady pop pop pop in the cellar. Pressure had ex-

ploded the tops off the jars, coating the cellar with a tangy mess. Over the
years, Trish became a skilled cook and canner. Dewey and Trish’s summer
crops fed the couple throughout the winter, as did the deer meat Dewey
brought home in the fall.
The Christian religion of the Appalachian hills drew her in. Soon she
began teaching Sunday School at the Pie Church of God. Little by little,
she adopted the hollows’ heritage and traditions and came to feel obligat-
ed to protect them.
Moving Mountains
6
Pie stretches three miles along Pigeon Creek and Route 52 in Mingo
County, from the base of Horsepen Mountain to the gas wells at Grants
Branch. The origin of its name is a bit hazy, but a postmaster in 1933 ex-
plained that “the word Pie was included in the list of suggested names sent
to the POD because there lived here one Leander Blankenship who really
likes pie, regardless of kind.”
Most of the men worked in mines in surrounding communities; Pie itself
was never a coal company town. From the 1950s to the 1970s, it was a favored
community to live in—rural, clean, and a good place for kids. Telephones
didn’t arrive until 1959, and there was never a grand supermarket, but people
competed for the most attractive yards and picnicked with friends.
Although the name Pie still appears on the state map and on a green
road sign, the post office disappeared in the early 1990s, along with a doz-
en houses in an entire section of the community. The company that owned
the houses had evicted residents because a deep mine was coming under-
neath. Now Pie residents have an address of Delbarton, twelve miles away.
As she reached her midthirties, Trish often described herself as “that
little fat lady” or sometimes “a housewife from Pie.” She had blond hair
and a smooth face that could glow with joy or flatten into steely anger.
Dewey was tall and laconic. Though he worked hard in the mines, he had
never fully recovered from his stint in Vietnam. In comparison to other
states, West Virginia regularly sends one of the largest percentages of its
youth off to war. Crowds made Dewey uncomfortable; if there were many
visitors, he would leave the house to roam the nearby hills. He was a good
husband and a good father to Kayla and Connie, born eleven years apart.
Trish was devoted to him.
Dewey was laid off from the mines in the early 1990s, and the family
went on welfare. Eventually, Dewey started receiving about thirteen hun-
dred dollars a month in pension and disability benefits. In 1993 they
bought the little green house along Nighway Branch, which joins Pigeon
Creek. In the winter they burned coal and oil, which gave them soot and
petroleum smells as well as warmth. To save delivery costs, Dewey used a
borrowed pickup truck to bring the coal and barrels of oil home. A brand
new house was beyond their wildest imagination.
That afternoon of Susan and Roy’s housewarming, Dewey took care of the ––––––
Awakening to Injustice
7
immediate crisis. He ran a line from his well over to theirs. It was a stop-
gap, not a real solution.
Unbeknownst to Susan and Trish, underground mines had been ad-
vancing toward their homes all year. They were the kind of mines that
Dewey had worked in, run mostly by machines that move efficiently
through five-foot-high coal seams. The aquifer near Susan’s well had been
pierced, sending the water elsewhere in the underground network of rock
fissures. Their liquid lifeline had vanished.
At the time, public water and sewer service was just a dream for Pie.
Some of the more populous parts of the coalfields had public water by the
mid-1990s. But rural areas had trouble finding the tens of millions of dol-
lars to serve widely scattered communities. Federal grants for water and
sewers in rural areas had dried up in the 1980s. Loans were available from
a variety of federal and state agencies, but patching together enough mon-
ey was difficult before a central board was created in 1994. Without pub-
lic water, and without a functioning well, those who could buy bottled
water did. Others would hunt for a spring—or the outflow from an old
deep mine full of water—and fill dozens of plastic jugs.
After Christmas presents had been opened and New Year’s festivities
had come and gone, Trish and Susan started looking for a way to restore
water to the community. By now they had discovered that a couple of
dozen neighbors were having problems with the underground mine. If
they hadn’t lost their water completely, it had turned brown or orange and
had a terrible taste. The Hatfields, who lived along highway 52 near the
mouth of Trish’s hollow at Nighway Branch, lost their water and then
watched as parts of their house started buckling into the ground. The
longwall mine (a type of mine in which collapse of the mine roof is an ex-
pected feature) was cracking the ground beneath their house. To compen-
sate for the water loss, the mine company supplied a four-hundred-gallon
water tank called a water buffalo and had it filled every few days.
Trish and Susan thought that if they just called the coal company, it
would fix the problems. With some difficulty, they discovered that the
company was named Mingo Logan and that it was a subsidiary of Arch
Coal of St. Louis. What they didn’t know at the time was that the mine,
named Mountaineer, would be the highest-producing coal mine in the
state and one of the top twenty nationwide.
Moving Mountains
8
The coal company did send men to investigate. Mingo Logan even
had a solution—but it came with a price. The company would drill two
dozen replacement wells for the community. But homeowners would have
to sign agreements promising not to sue the coal company for future dam-
ages. This just wasn’t right, Trish thought. She and Susan refused to sign
and advised their neighbors not to sign.
As the weeks dragged on, Trish became angrier. A neighbor suggested
she call the state mine inspectors. She discovered an office for West Virgin-
ia’s DEP (Division of Environmental Protection) in Logan, about twenty
miles north. Susan’s mailbox began filling with official manila envelopes.
Soon, Trish thought, we’ll need filing boxes. To Trish, the copies of inspec-
tion reports that DEP must send to the complainant weren’t any help. The
inspectors didn’t think the mines had taken the water. Trish was becoming
frustrated. Her own well was fine, water clear and abundant. But just be-
cause she had water didn’t mean she shouldn’t fight so the rest of her peo-
ple had good water.
Audrey Carter (right) and Vicky Moore look at the water buffalo, used to provide
water when Arch Coal’s deep mine dried up the well at Herbie and Deb Hatfield’s
house in Pie.
Awakening to Injustice
9
One night a few weeks later, Trish stopped at the convenience store
near the top of Horsepen Mountain, the only shop within ten miles. “I
hear some people been losing water down by you,” owner Willis Chafin
said to Trish. A little surprised, Trish nodded. Chafin had a suggestion:
Call the WVOP (West Virginia Organizing Project) in Logan. A new
group, it was helping people who had problems with the mines.
Susan called the WVOP office and spoke with organizer Elaine Pur-
key. “You need to organize a house meeting,” she told Susan. “Call me
when you’re ready, and I’ll come and meet with the people.” Elaine met
with Susan twice to organize the house meeting, and Susan told her about
Trish. Then one day in early spring, Susan greeted Elaine and helped her
carry a box of papers into her house. Elaine was in her midforties and had
a friendly face. She cocked her head toward Trish’s house. “Is that where
your mouthy neighbor lives?”
“Yes,” Susan replied. “She’s really angry about what’s happened to ev-
eryone. If she knew what to do, she wouldn’t care to take up for the rest of
them.”
“Well,” Elaine said, “let’s see what I can teach her.”
About two dozen of Trish and Susan’s neighbors had gathered in Su-
san’s living room. Elmer Goodman, a retired miner in his seventies, was
there, as tall as his wife was petite. Trish called him Brother Goodman and
loved his little jokes. Barb Harris, who lived near the mouth of the hollow,
had come too. Slim and fortyish, she drove heavy equipment at a surface
mine about forty miles north of Pie. She also had lost her water.
Half-eaten cake and other sweets sat on coffee tables when Elaine ar-
rived. She began by handing out copies of WVOP’s Mountain Monitor.
The lead headline read: “WVOP dominates DEP town meeting.” Trish
and her friends glanced through the article. Trish noticed that WVOP had
met with DEP director David Callaghan in October. Their letter to him

had expressed concern about dust and noise from coal trucks, large surface
mines too close to homes, and, most importantly, well damage from sur-
face mine blasting and underground mines.
“I know you all are wondering about me,” Elaine began. “And you
don’t trust me yet. That’s okay. I don’t blame you after all you’ve been
through. It’s true I get paid to do this. But I got this job because of the
work I did in the Pittson coal strike of 1989. My husband’s a union miner,
and he and I helped lead the strike over health benefits.
Moving Mountains
10
“I’m not from Charleston. I was born and raised in Harts in Lincoln
County. My daddy worked for the C&O Railroad, and my husband’s a
third generation underground coal miner. We have three daughters. I was
raised poor, and I’m still poor. But one thing I never had to do was go
without water. I can’t imagine how you all are feeling right now.”
One man suddenly recognized Elaine. “You sing,” he said. “I heard
you on the radio.”
Elaine smiled proudly. “I was performing on a local radio show—
that’s where you heard me. When I started working on the Pittson strike,
I started writing and singing labor songs.”
Trish’s face was stern as she watched Elaine from a corner of the room.
Occasionally, she took notes. Finally she challenged Elaine: “How much
will it cost for you to help us?”
“Nothing,” Elaine responded calmly. “I told you, I am an organizer
for the West Virginia Organizing Project. We write our work up in grants
and get money to teach regular people like you all to pretty much do what
we do. We are a membership organization. Our dues are based on one’s
ability to pay. If you can’t afford the dues, you give us your time and en-
ergy and become a member that way.”
Barb raised her hand. “Will you help us pay for a lawyer?”
“WVOP doesn’t do lawsuits,” Elaine explained. “We believe in giving
people the power to change their own lives through organizing to con-
front the powers that be and forcing them to do what’s best for the peo-
ple—not for big business.”
“Does that usually work?” Barb asked.
“Government officials and public officials are scared to death of a
group of citizens knocking on their doors with enough confidence and
knowledge to tell their story and make demands.”
“But how do we know who to talk to and what to say?” Barb won-
dered, puzzled.
“It’s my job to teach you,” Elaine said, then paused, searching. “That
is, once we figure out who’s got the power to give us what we want. Who
that is, that’s our first task to figure out.”
Finally Trish was ready to join in. She moved closer to the center of
the room: “Why can’t you do it for us?”
“That’s not what I get paid to do,” Elaine countered. “My job is to em-
power citizens to speak for themselves. I don’t know your story. I don’t
Awakening to Injustice
11
know how you feel. Nobody can tell your story as well as you can. And I
tell you right now, I won’t make your plan for you. You have to make your
own plan ’cause you are the only ones who know what you are willing to
put on the line. If you don’t work, I don’t work.” Elaine looked around the
room and added, with emphasis: “I don’t live here, it’s not my problem, it’s
yours.”
Trish wasn’t convinced. “What if we make a plan, and you don’t agree
with it?”
“Then I’ll tell you what I think based on my experience,” Elaine ex-
plained patiently. “If you want to continue with your plan, it’s my job to
help you. If the plan is mine and you don’t agree with it, you’re not going
to work hard on it.” Elaine smiled. “And we will always have a plan B, and
if possible, a plan C.”
Brother Goodman raised his hand, nearly dumping his plate of cake,
and asked plaintively: “What can we do? I don’t have any water. The state
tells us the mines didn’t do it.”
“The surface mining law says they have to replace your wells,” Elaine
reassured him. “We have to force them to do it.
“Don’t get me wrong, mining has made a good living for me and my
family. But my husband would be the first to tell you what they are doing
now is just plain wrong. They’re tearing down your homes with blasting,
and they are stealing your water. We have to do something, and we have
to do it now.”
Trish squared her shoulders and looked at Elaine. “How do we know
you’re not connected with the government?”
Elaine just looked at Trish. “You don’t have to trust me,” she said. “I
know it’s really hard right now. But what else do you have?”
Trish was silent for a minute, then her shoulders relaxed. “Okay,” she
told Elaine, “You’ve convinced me for now. I’ve got a mouth, now you
teach it what to say.”
“That’s a challenge I want to accept,” Elaine smiled, then turned back
to the table where Susan, Barb, and a half dozen others were filling out
membership forms for WVOP and handing in payment. Trish hung back;
she didn’t have money for a membership. Besides, she still wasn’t sure how
much she wanted to be involved with this organization—and that bossy
organizer.
Actually, Elaine wasn’t sure about Trish either. She thought she had a
Moving Mountains
12
smart attitude and a big mouth. But they soon got down to the business
of organizing. Differences melted away, replaced by a close bond. Not
long after that first meeting at Susan’s house, Elaine and Trish and Kayla,
who was seven at the time, went to dinner after a conference on water at
DEP. “I wish I could join WVOP,” Trish told Elaine. Kayla piped up, “Me,
too.” As Trish searched her wallet, Elaine pulled a few dollar bills from her
purse. Trish and Kayla were now members of WVOP.
WVOP’s philosophy was different from that of service groups, which
help connect the poor and minorities to social services. WVOP, which was
formed in 1991, did not give handouts, not money, not goods. Nor was it
an environmental group, though the media would tag it as such over the
next few years. Instead, WVOP taught people how to help themselves and
their neighbors. In fact, staff were not even permitted to speak for mem-
bers when the press came looking for interviews.
Following a pattern similar to the one developed by Saul Alinsky in
Chicago in the early 1940s, WVOP encouraged members to decide on
problems that could be solved and then design an approach. Usually it in-
cluded negotiation, action, pressure, and resolution. Alinsky’s philosophy
infuses many social-justice movements, from the struggle of low-income-
housing tenants to that of the United Farm Workers. The groups choose
winnable issues, often using small victories as building blocks to a bigger
goal. “How the hell do we get people to participate in their lives and gov-
ernment?” Alinsky asked. “The real democratic program is . . . a healthy,
active, participating, interested, self-confident people who, though their
participation and interest, become informed, educated, and above all de-
velop faith in themselves, their fellow man and the future.”
Some writers, especially during the 1960s, have questioned whether
the people of Appalachia are capable of working together for the better-
ment of themselves. This was the view expressed by Jack E. Weller in Yes-
terday’s People. Weller had spent thirteen years as a missionary in Whites-
ville, in Boone County, West Virginia, about sixty miles northeast of Pie.
In the same vein, Harry M. Caudill’s Night Comes to the Cumberlands fo-
cused on Kentucky, describing descendants of white Europeans who were
sometimes violent and whose education and socialization had been stunt-
ed by the coal-company domination.
More recently, Appalachian studies scholars have become increasingly
critical of the typecasting perpetuated by the Caudill and Weller books.
Awakening to Injustice
13
“In the 1980s and 1990s, an impressive array of scholarly studies have laid
the groundwork for transforming the way we understand and think about
the Appalachian region,” wrote Stephen Fisher in the introduction to
Fighting Back in Appalachia. “They explain how, why and for whose ben-
efit the damaging and misleading stereotypes of Appalachians were devel-
oped. They document how the economic problems faced by many in Ap-
palachia are a result not of isolation and lack of economic development,
but of the type of modernization that has occurred there.” People needed
to get on equal footing with coal.
That wasn’t easy. Mining regulations were as difficult as calculus for
the average citizen. Coalfield residents became increasingly angry as they
tried to understand what regulations required and which agency enforced
them. Their frustration with the mines became misdirected toward mine
regulators who tried to help but found their hands tied as well. When

WVOP opened its doors in the coalfields, it was immediately entrusted
with a vital mission, yet one that sometimes seemed nearly impossible.
WVOP had spent its early years, from 1991 until 1994, gathering
mining regulations and learning who was who at the state and federal reg-
ulatory agencies. The group had won significant victories, including re-
routing coal trucks away from communities and stopping one mine be-
cause the coal trucks would have overwhelmed the narrow road through
the community. So when Elaine met with Trish and Susan in the spring of
1995, the office files were already brimming with complaints to DEP and
hydrology reports on the more than a dozen underground mines near Pi-
geon Creek.
Ten years older than Trish and already a grandmother by the time they
met, Elaine, with her husband, Bethel, had led the 1989 UMWA (United
Mine Workers of America) strike against the Pittson mine, which lay be-
tween Logan and Man—a fight over health-care benefits that was the last
successful union action against the mines. Years earlier, as a high school
student, Elaine had won the week in Washington fellowship awarded by
West Virginia Congressman Ken Hechler, one of the state’s best-loved
public officials. By the time she met Trish, she had already set off on the
precarious path of trying to control mining abuses while understanding
that the nation’s need for West Virginia coal would probably keep the
mines open.
––––––
Moving Mountains
14
On May 25, 1995, Trish, Susan, Brother Goodman, and more than a doz-
en neighbors—and even Dewey—were off to an 8:00 a.m. picket line at
DEP’s headquarters in Nitro at the western edge of the Charleston sub-
urbs. Tucked in the shadow of the monstrous cooling towers of the John
Amos coal-fueled power plant, Nitro was said to have been named after
the nitroglycerine once manufactured there.
The group had created clever slogans for their placards, including
“Don’t Take the Sweetest Slice of Pie.” Elaine watched from the sidelines,
since WVOP staff were prohibited from participating in members’ under-
takings. Signs held high, the group intimidated DEP staff inside. One sec-
retary wondered if she should call the police. Wendy Radcliff, the first-
ever DEP environmental (people’s) advocate, quickly quelled that thought.
“This is their building too,” she said. “We will put them in the board room
and treat them like royalty.” Over the coming years, Wendy became one
of WVOP’s strongest allies.
On this trip, Trish and her friends didn’t get to see any of the top DEP
officials. They were able to set appointments for a future meeting, how-
ever. And before they left, they took their empty jugs and collected many
gallons of clean water from the water cooler near the first-floor cubicles.
They climbed in their cars feeling a bit triumphant.
When WVOP had realized it would have to deal with DEP—quite
possibly for years—members decided to try to cultivate a cooperative spir-

it. It was one of the group’s best decisions, Elaine realized as the years went
by. That was not to say that WVOP members couldn’t protest DEP rul-
ings or picket. But they invited top DEP officials to meetings at homes or
public auditoriums in the coalfields. There they calmly laid out their prob-
lems—and asked what DEP proposed as solutions.
Early on, Elaine and WVOP members had noticed two DEP mining
officials who seemed as sympathetic as government officials could be.
Mining director John Ailes, who turned fifty in 1994, had been with the
agency in its various forms since graduating from West Virginia Univer-
sity in 1973 with a degree in forestry. His great-grandfather, John Jacob
Cornwell, had been governor from 1917 through 1920. As a young boy,
Ailes’s job had been to pick up his great-grandfather, then blind, and walk
him home from lunch. Ailes’s uncle, Stephen Ailes, was secretary of the
army under President Lyndon Johnson, and this was one reason Ailes
served in the Army National Guard for more than twenty years. A short
Awakening to Injustice
15
man with a wad of tobacco stuffed in his cheek, Ailes had an easy manner
and moved smoothly between coal barons, legislators, and citizens.
Ed Griffith, a little younger than Ailes and with the slim build of a
constant smoker, came from humbler beginnings. He and his wife, Phyl-
iss, a miner’s daughter, lived about sixty miles east of Pie in Princeton.
Like Ailes, Griffith was a career DEP official. By the mid-1990s, he had
become head of DEP’s three southern offices in Logan, Oak Hill, and
Welch. From the start, WVOP found him a friend, but extremely cau-
tious. He would take strong enforcement action only if he was absolutely
sure a law had been broken and he was supported by the DEP director.
Although the state had a progressive Democratic governor in 1995, both
Ailes and Griffith had survived repressive Republican administrations by
picking their battles carefully. One or the other, or sometimes both of
them, attended many meetings between WVOP and DEP directors.
A month after the demonstration at DEP, on June 22, the new DEP
director met with WVOP in the coalfields. Eli McCoy, a career environ-
Trish Bragg speaks at a West Virginia Organizing Project get-to-know-you meeting
with the state Division of Environmental Protection. Mining chief John Ailes is
second from right. DEP director Mike Castle is on his right. Elaine Purkey is on the
lower left, seated next to WVOP organizer Ashley Cochrane.
Moving Mountains
16
mental regulator, was the most environment- and citizen-friendly of the
seven DEP directors Trish would come to know. In the following months,
he would even call her from his car phone just to be sure improvements
were progressing. Before the meeting, when Trish and her friends re-
searched McCoy’s biography, They discovered he was a native of Delbar-
ton, not far from Pie.
This first meeting, at Southern West Virginia Community College in
Logan, was just a get-to-know-you event, where they introduced WVOP
to McCoy and listened to his thoughts. They told him they weren’t against
mining—they just wanted it done without harming homes or people.
“We believe that if we establish a productive relationship with Mr. McCoy
from the beginning, we can have access to him in the future to deal with
particular problems,” stated the plan for the meeting. Food was served, as
it usually was at WVOP meetings with government officials.
The tough questions came at the next meeting with McCoy, Sunday
afternoon, July 9. Trish, Susan, and their friends prepared as if to defend a
dissertation. They knew the laws inside out. The first of Susan’s nine ques-
tions asked: “Will you implement subsidence and water replacement reg-
ulations which comply with the Energy Policy Act of 1992 immediately?”
Two of the questions dealt with the possibility of public water for houses
along Pigeon Creek—something coal companies wanted so they could
keep mining under communities. Susan asked, “Will you assure us that if
a water system is installed, groundwater will continue to be protected, and
well owners may continue to use their wells?”
On July 14, Trish and Susan wrote McCoy, thanking him for coming
to Mingo County for a meeting on a Sunday afternoon. Thank yous be-
came a hallmark of WVOP’s procedure. They were a respectful nicety
John Ailes and other public officials appreciated, especially compared to
the stridency of some mining critics. The letter confirmed what McCoy
had committed to, including enforcement of the 1992 law requiring water
replacement (West Virginia was the first state to enact that requirement).
Trish and Susan also asked for the status of four requests he did not com-
mit to; among them were finding a way to get money for public water
from the coal companies and from a federal program for cleaning up aban-
doned mines. These would be ways to gain needed benefits without in-
creasing the tax burden of local residents.
Answers came at a meeting with the group on Trish’s birthday, August
Awakening to Injustice
17
9. McCoy agreed that the water-replacement waivers that Mingo Logan
had asked residents to sign were not legally binding. The mine must dig
them new wells, no strings attached. Residents were free to complain all
they wanted about future mining. McCoy also promised to halt any new
permits on the other side of Pigeon Creek until public water was assured.
The community soon got more good news. County officials had de-
termined that 65 percent of the homes along Pigeon Creek had lost their
water from the mines that honeycombed the area. In June 1996 the coun-
ty gave the go-ahead for public water and began raising funds for the $5.8
million price tag.
For the time being, problems seemed to have subsided.
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The summer of 1995 was a whirlwind of new experiences for Trish, coming
at a time when her entire being seemed to soak up every drop of knowledge.
Sensing a leader in the making, Elaine sent Trish off for a week of training
at SEP (the Southern Empowerment Project) in Tennessee, an umbrella
group and informal parent to several dozen citizens’ groups. At WVOP’s an-
nual meeting in September 1995, Trish was elected vice chairperson.
The federal Welfare Reform Act helped set Trish’s course the next year.
With Dewey disabled, the family had been on welfare for a couple of
years. Now the government wanted welfare clients to join the workforce.
Dewey couldn’t work, so Trish had to get a job. At first the welfare office
gave her a make-work position cooking and answering phones at the Gil-
bert firehouse. Trish, with her empowered attitude, didn’t take this long.
The social services office thought she was too old to go to college. Trish did
not agree. She wouldn’t back down until she was allowed to take the skills
tests. When she got the second-highest score, the woman in charge of ed-
ucational development told her she could be anything she wanted: admin-
istrator, teacher, psychologist.
But where could she find money for college? Through SEP and WVOP,
she learned about various organizations that pay tuition for older stu-
dents. Elaine wouldn’t let Trish give up, having always regretted that she
herself didn’t have the opportunity to go to college.
In January 1997 Connie, Trish’s older daughter, started attending
Southern West Virginia Community College in Williamson. By the fall
semester, Trish had gathered enough scholarships to enroll as a full-time
student too. Scared and shy, Trish asked Connie to help her register for
Moving Mountains
18
classes. She had never been inside a college. The mass of teenagers fright-
ened her at first; she sought protection by taking three classes with her
daughter. But soon Connie joked that her mother had more friends at her
table in the cafeteria than Connie had.
The students might be young, but they would come in Monday morn-
ing wasted from a weekend of partying. Trish studied until midnight. Her
papers and quizzes frequently received A or 90 percent. But when she
opened her first semester grades, she began to weep. Seeking out Connie,
she thrust the report at her. “I got a 40,” she moaned. Connie took the
paper, read it, and started to laugh. “No, Mom,” she said. “You have a 4.0.
That’s a perfect grade average.”
As Trish’s confidence grew, she began to aim higher. She allowed her-
self to imagine earning a bachelor’s degree, then a master’s, and perhaps
even a doctorate. If she became a college graduate, she would join an elite
minority, since only 7 percent of the residents of Mingo County had a
bachelor’s degree in 1990.
By the summer of 1997, Trish’s involvement with WVOP had waned.
Elaine had left after a new coordinator was hired, and Trish didn’t hit it off
with him. Gradually, she withdrew, though she had been elected secretary
of SEP and continued to travel to Tennessee for those meetings. Trish’s
days were filled with college, keeping her house Good Housekeeping tidy,
caring for Kayla and Dewey, and teaching Sunday School at her church.
Connie had married and moved to North Carolina, where jobs were easi-
er to find.
It was a mine—actually two mines—that jolted Trish back into action.