Op-Ed: Eastern KY already has ingredients for success

Some positive thoughts from today's op-ed page in the Lexington Herald-Leader. What do you think – are the pieces there for Eastern Kentucky to thrive? What's missing? And what will it take to bring those pieces together?   E. Ky. already has ingredients for success   Appalachian Kentucky is a rugged, rural mountain area, densely populated in most regions, with a unique set of opportunities and challenges different from the rest of rural America.   Leaders, scholars, planners and activists inside and outside the region have erred in offering solutions for growth and change based on two simplistic and flawed premises:   ■ The tremendous reservoir of natural resources and their extraction have made the region a colony for industrial America and prevented the distribution of wealth or diversified job growth.   ■ The high poverty area is filled with people dependent on entitlement programs and this culture of poverty so dominates this isolated region that hope is futile.   The first premise places the blame on coal and the latter blames the victim. These are flawed models. Improved education and enhanced leadership at all levels are the critical components necessary to advance Appalachian Kentucky from the inside out.   We have made significant progress in both, providing a firm base to build upon.   The absence of a comprehensive research university has limited our resources to solve many issues. However, visionary presidents at Eastern Kentucky University and Morehead State University  collaborate to find new ways to serve the...

Making Connections: Highlights from the Rural Broadband Summit...

Earlier this month, the Center for Rural Strategies, the Center for Media Justice and Free Press convened at Appalshop to address rural broadband internet access in Appalachia.  We've blogged about the event before, but wanted to make sure you saw the WMMT Mountain Talk broadcast of highlights from the event.  More information and a podcast are available on the Making Connections website — be sure to check it out: Hosted by Mimi Pickering – On October 12 a group gathered at Appalshop to talk about the importance of accessible, affordable high-speed Internet in Appalachian communities. Residents from across the region came to share their concerns and ideas with special guests Jonathan Adelstein, administrator of the Rural Utilities Service in the US Department of Agriculture, and Mark DeFalco from the Appalachian Regional Commission. The first broadband hearing to be held in rural America, was co-sponsored by the Center for Rural Strategies, the Center for Media Justice, and Free Press, with the local support of Appalshop, the Partnership of African American Churches, and the Central Appalachia Regional Network.  This WMMT Mountain Talk highlights excerpts from the presentations and public comments shared at the event. About Kristin TraczKristin Tracz served MACED’s Research and Policy team from 2009-2012 working on clean energy policy, energy efficiency programs and the Appalachian Transition Initiative. She joined MACED after finishing her Master of Environmental Management degree at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. She now lives and works in Washington,...

Appalachian Forests are More Than Just the Trees

For too long, economic development in Appalachia has been focused on attracting big, outside businesses with tax breaks and other incentives. However, these firms often can move out as easily as they moved in, as many communities who saw their livelihoods move overseas can attest. Growing local businesses from community and regional assets has begun to gain more traction, and, as the Daily Yonder showed recently, are creating jobs as well. The Daily Yonder profiled Rural Action, a non-profit based in Appalachian Ohio, and their Wealth From Forests Initiative, which connects buyers interested in sustainably-harvested lumber to landowners, loggers and sawmills.  "'We’re building a wood products brokering business to help locally owned producers access the green market,' [Executive Director Michelle] Decker said. They started out working with buyers in Virginia and Tennessee, but now are bidding on jobs in Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania."  Central Appalachia’s forests are abundant, and once were a source of great wealth for the regio n. But as the recession hit the homebuilding industry, the region’s timber industry has declined precipitiously. Between 2004 and 2009, the number of people employed in the wood products manufacturing sector in Appalachian Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia dropped an estimated 27%.  Meanwhile, poor management practices, invasive species and wildfires have reduced the quality of our timber. Programs like the Wealth From Forests Initiative build the incentive for managed land and sustainable harvesting practices, as certified wood products fetch higher prices and are seeing increased demand: "As these...

Documentary project looks at transition from coal in Appalachia and Wales...

Guest blog by filmmaker Tom Hansell, on his ongoing project After Coal. After Coal: Welsh and Appalachian Mining Communities explores how two mining cultures face the challenge of their dependence on fossil fuels.  The Welsh coalfields essentially shut down during the 1980’s, forcing local communities to develop new strategies to rebuild their communities.  As the U.S. Geological Survey predicts that the Appalachian coalfields are entering their last generation of mining, this documentary will help mountain communities map directions to a sustainable future after coal. “Given the issues going on around the Appalachian coalfields right now, we need to look at what has happened in Wales since the closing of the mines from about 1986 on,” said Pat Beaver, director of the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University. “The experience of Wales could add a sense of urgency to thinking about the future of our region.” To find out more, visit the project’s website. Photo: Welsh miners interviewed by John Gaventa in 1976 Appalachia and Welsh mining communities are linked through historic migration and recent exchanges.  During 1974 -1976 Appalachian scholar Helen Lewis, along with political scientist John Gaventa and filmmaker Richard Greatrex, made over 150 videotapes of life in the Welsh coalfields, including cultural events and interviews.  Lewis’s research in South Wales culminated in a 1979 exchange between Welsh and Appalachian coal miners sponsored by the Highlander Center and supported by Appalachian State University.  Recently Lewis archived the Welsh videotapes in ASU’s Appalachian Collection archives, where they...

Occupy the Hollers?

"Silicon Holler", the Facebook identity of the University of Kentucky's Appalachian Center listserv "Appalnet" posted this great image on Facebook over the weekend — and it got us thinking. The image overlays an Appalachian Regional Commission map of relative poverty of Appalachian counties, as a percent of the U.S. average.  The darker the blue, the higher the poverty.  The deep blue color represents areas 150-366% of the U.S. average.  As a whole, the Appalachian region had an average poverty rate of 13.6% compared to a U.S. national average of 12.4% in 2004.  An even more recent map based on the American Community Survey data from 2005-2009 is available now and the numbers look worse in many ways, with a regional average of 15.4% and U.S. average of 13.5%. Coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement, or We are the 99 Percent, has been widespread.  The Lexington Herald Leader even covered Occupy Lexington's efforts to express frustration with the current economic system here in Kentucky. One of the most common refrains from groups hunkered down in Boston, in Denver, in Oakland, in New York is that the system 'is broken' and 'isn't working for us'.  Appalachians know that feeling well.  So what would it mean to Occupy the Hollers really? What would you ask for?  What changes would you want to see happening right now in our own communities, towns, counties and region?  Could we come up with a list of asks? Let us know what you think, on Facebook,...

Appalachian Voices: Energizing the Clean Economy– How Efficiency Creates Jobs and Saves Money...

Our friends at Appalachian Voices posted a great blog on Friday, looking at energy efficiency and job creation in specific stories around the region.  Check it out below or on the Appalachian Voices website. Energizing the Clean Economy How Efficiency Creates Jobs and Saves Money By Brian Sewell Political speeches, the nightly news and newspaper headlines are filled with reminders of the battered economy and the millions unemployed or underpaid. But as energy efficiency and renewable technologies advance, more domestic jobs are created that foster a sustainable economy, save money at home, and benefit human health and the environment. It’s an ambitious goal, but across Appalachia, many forward-thinkers and industry leaders have already seen the light. Mike McKechnie keeps both a lump of coal and a piece of silicon, the main component in solar cells, on his desk. He knows the direction of the nation’s energy future comes in part from knowing its past. The owner of Mountain View Solar & Wind in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., McKechnie has spent years promoting energy efficiency and the benefits of solar and wind power. “We’ve always been concerned in giving the consumer education,” McKechnie says. “It helps them manage the utility bill that is so important to them. Once we have their attention, we can show them the energy saving components and translate that to dollars.” When McKechnie and his wife purchased a home from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon in 2005, they began hosting energy efficiency, solar technology and...

Hazard Herald: No better time to look ahead for region’s economy...

Last week, the Hazard Herald published a very interesting editorial, calling for a conversation about the economic future of the region.  The questions asked by the Herald's editors are, we think, the exactly right ones to be asking.  The answers are — not surprisingly — harder to come by, but until we start to ask these questions calmly, fairly, and publicly the conversation about solutions will be so much harder to have.  Great to see media in the heart of Appalachian communities supporting an honest conversation on our shared economic future. No better time to look ahead for region’s economy A recent editorial out of Lexington asked an important question for those of us in Eastern Kentucky: What’s next after the coal’s gone? For decades now Eastern Kentucky has, fort the most part, survived by a steady flow of coal from our mountains. By and large we haven’t bothered to build any other sustainable industries. Sure, we’ve come a long way, and mining coal is a much better and safer vocation than it used to be, but at some point that resource is going to disappear from our mountains. And what then? Simply put, we don’t know any more than our counterparts in Lexington do. We have a few officials on both the local and state levels working to transform our mountains into a tourist destination, and there has been some limited success in Harlan and Knott County. Even so, both counties, like the majority of the region, are...

Rural Broadband Summit Address Lack of Access in Appalachia

From the Daily Yonder: There's an 'App' For That by Tim Marema Businessman and small-town mayor G.C. Kincer would like to take just a little credit for helping bring broadband Internet access to Eastern Kentucky. But it’s not your typical success story. Around the year 2000 there was no wireless broadband in downtown Whitesburg, a 2,100-population county seat town in the Appalachian coalfields. So Kincer invested his money in equipment to serve downtown businesses and homes with wireless Internet access. About the time he hit 50 customers, he said, bigger telephone companies started to notice. “When I invested in the community, the phone company sort of speeded up their investment,” he said.  Kincer closed his Internet business when the phone company rolled out broadband to the areas he was serving, offering lower prices. Then, when Kincer went out of business, the phone company, which was then BellSouth, slowed its expansion into this part of rural Eastern Kentucky. “That’s when I figured out that if we were going to solve this problem of broadband access, it’s going to have to be a community solution,” he said. Kincer, a radio station owner and mayor of nearby Jenkins, Ky., was one of about 20 speakers at a public hearing on the future of broadband in rural communities held this week in Whitesburg. The event was sponsored by the Center for Rural Strategies (publisher of the Daily Yonder) and media advocacy groups Center for Media Justice and Free Press. The purpose of the...