(This letter appeared in the Charleston Gazette)

Through the generosity of our families, my wife and I had the great fortune of traveling to Italy this spring to see our daughter, who was studying there one semester. While there, we visited magnificent churches, saw incredible architecture and craftsmanship, and viewed art masterpieces known throughout the world. We saw Michelangelo's "David." We walked through the indescribably beautiful corridors of Vatican City, ending up in the Sistine Chapel. We stayed in buildings hundreds of years old. In fact, we found out that Venice hadn't changed much in appearance since the 13th century.

While in Italy, my wife asked me if I had ever experienced anything as beautiful or as ancient as that which we were seeing on our trip. My first response was, not surprisingly, that "no, I hadn’t."

As we traveled back to our home, which sits high on the ridges of Lincoln County, I got to thinking of her question again. I began to realize that perhaps I had responded too quickly. I turned to her on the plane and told her that the hills that we are blessed enough to call home here in West Virginia are much, much older than any of the ancient buildings either standing or in ruins in Italy, or anywhere else in the world, for that matter.

As for beautiful, not even turning the corner and seeing Michelangelo’s "David" for the first time affected me as strongly as simply to walk through the hills around us; or just to sit on the porch on a summer evening, or morning, and look out over the beautiful West Virginia ridgetops.

At this very moment, and every moment of every day, huge chunks are being ripped out of our beautiful West Virginia hills. Our ridges are being unceremoniously dumped into the otherwise gentle valleys.

I really don't consider myself as either unusually sentimental or sensitive. I get quite stirred up, however, when I hear or read that it’s always only "those environmentalists," or "those extreme environmentalists," or, my least favorite, "those extremely radical environmentalists" that consider the destruction of Southern West Virginia wrong. You don't have to be an environmentalist, or a Christian, or either a Democrat or a Republican, to feel in your heart that what is happening in Southern West Virginia is wrong. Just plain, and simply, wrong.

Would we bulldoze down the Basilica of St. Peter's in Vatican City? Would we take a sledgehammer to Michelangelo’s "David"? Would we take a sandblaster into the Sistine Chapel? Would we, people, flatten Venice so that we could start over and boast that we "are making it better"?

When I go out in the morning and work each day building out of wood or block, I don’t try to do the electrician’s job, or the architect’s, or that of a doctor. I do the job that I was hired and am being paid to do, that of a carpenter. I just can’t get it straight why it is that each and every person of authority that we West Virginians count on to protect our environment and, sometimes, our lives, sounds and acts more like a chairman of the Chamber of Commerce or lobbyist for the coal industry. Don’t we deserve better? Don’t the Chambers of Commerce and coal industry have their own advocates and spokesmen?

That is why it is with renewed hope and extreme respect that I received the news that Michael McCabe of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency objected to new mountaintop removal permits. It’s encouraging and renewing to find a person steadfastly doing his job: upholding the laws that were enacted to protect both the environment and the citizens. On the other hand, it is discouraging and enraging that our governor shamelessly threatened to get Mr. McCabe fired.

To the Michael McCabes, Ken Hechlers, Cindy Ranks, and John McFerrins of this world: Thank you. You are West Virginia’s best hope, perhaps, only hope for stopping the destruction of the beautiful rolling hills of West Virginia. Let us hope that you are not too late, and that, at the very least, a moratorium might be set in place on new permits.

When battling against the money of the coal industry, and those whose souls money has bought, it is easy to become disheartened and overwhelmed. Let us take heart and new hope in the words of one truly great West Virginian, John McFerrin of Beckley, president of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, when he writes that we, at least, "have the advantage of being right."