Dear WVHC,

My name is Eric White and I am a 1995 graduate of WV Tech. I am 26 years old and my family includes my wife Holly and son Brady. I am employed by Rish Equipment Company as a sales representative. Would you like to know what I sell? Thats [sic] right the "evil" that is heavy mining equipment. I unlike most of your membership live and work in the real world. I interact daily with the people you claim to want to save from the dastardly mining practices. You have no clue what your cause is do you? Your cause is to destroy the lives of the people of West Virginia. My industry pays more wages and taxes than anything else in this state.

It puts food in the mouths of people who without it would have nothing. The 60 year old man in Mingo county who can barely read or right [sic] but still has his pride because mining pays him not only with money but with dignity because he provides for his family. You champion a cause like this because you value rocks, mountains, and streams more than human beings. Is your group going to provide our state with high paying jobs when you destroy mining.[sic] No, of course not. You make nothing. You sell nothing. You are nothing but a pimple on humanity that will move on to the next cause once you have destoyed [sic] the lives of those you claim need your protection. This state is economically impaired enough already without the help of the "save the bluegill" types like yourself. Where I grew up we had a word for people like yourselves "losers" [sic] people like you are the outcasts of society having no real substance in your lives so you make mountains your best friends. You are causing immense pain and suffering on those who cannot go elsewhere to earn a living. I fortunately have the ability to migrate south and continue to thrive, but I unlike yourselves actually love this state and its people and over my dead body will I let a bunch of lightweight tree huggers run me out of my home. Get a job, and a life. Mining is done responsibly and with great care not to damage the environment. If you claim to love the mountains so much why dont [sic] you move to Dingess, Ragland, Dunlow, or Rawl. What, [sic] you don't know where these places are? Thats [sic] because you’ve never been there have you.[sic] This is where you need to see what you are causing, absolute destuction [sic] of families! If you are the brave defenders of mother earth you claim to be go with me to these places and explain why daddy is laid off and junior is going to bed hungry again. You people can’t hurt me, I'm a winner, winners find a way to win. But what about those who have no skills which can provide for there [sic] families. All of this to save a few mountains you people will never see anyway. You disgust me! You don’t have the intellectual power to make it in the real world so you pin your hopes to dirt and rocks. What are you saving us from. A few more flat areas where we could actually build a decent golf course or dam a stream to build a lake for some recreation, hell we could even build a few more Wal-Marts [sic] we could use more of those huh? I wish someone in your group had the guts to come to my office and talk to the 62 year old parts clerk who wonders if he will have a job next month, or the secretaries who can barely pay there [sic] rent now. This is about real people, real lives, real pain. Maybe you and Ken Hechler can earn a paycheck by mountain climbing in Logan but we can’t. We all can’t work at the Toyota plant [sic] you fools! This industry is to [sic] embedded in our economy and culture to stop it. Im [sic] sure your petty little society will not pay me $100,000 a year to fight for the rights of pine cones and squirrels. People [sic] you need to get your idealistic heads out of the clouds and return to the land of those of us whose heads are filled with gray matter. Stop and think if you want your groups legacy to be the destruction of my state! If you do then may god [sic] help you.

Sincerely,

Eric White Feb. 23, 1999

Rish Equipment Company

If you have the guts to respond 304-755-3311 eric.m.white@gte.net ª

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Editor:

The photo on page 19 of the current Highlands Voice [February 99] is a view looking down the Smoke Hole and was taken from Cave Mountain, near the Grant/Pendleton County line. The photographer was David P. Cruise and the date of the photo circa 1957. Dave was a state photographer having worked for the Department of Commerce and the West Virginia Industrial and Publicity and Conservation Commissions during the fifties, sixties and early seventies.

Sincerely,

Gerald S. Ratliff February 22

Charleston

Thanks for this information, Gerald. Ed. ª

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Editor:

Enclosed please find copies of a handout on eastern cougars, which I wrote and am distributing through a grant from the Sierra club. I hope it might be of interest to your readers. Please feel free to use it in whole or in part in your excellent newsletter (though attribution would be appreciated). Also, please feel free to make additional copies for further distribution – in fact, I would be grateful if you would forward a copy to anyone you thought might like to copy and spread further.

I have written to EPA in protest of mountaintop removal and to legislators against the Blackwater Canyon logging. More power to you in your efforts.

Sincerely

Chris Bolgiano February 28, 1999

Fulks Run, VA

I will endeavor to publish the Cougar Brochure in a subsequent Voice issue. Chris sent me about a dozen brochures. Write or email me for a copy and I will send one to you as long as they last. Editor. ª