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Toyota Driving Demand For Solar Power In Ohio Valley
By: Sydney Boles | Ohio Valley ReSource
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Automaker Toyota is planning to announce a major investment in solar and other renewable energy in Appalachia and the Southeastern U.S. The plan includes a massive new solar facility on an old surface coal mine property in Kentucky. Sources close to the deal tell the Ohio Valley Resource that the Kentucky site is part of… Read More
Profiting Off Prisoners: State Inmates Mean Big Bucks for Local Jails
By: Sydney Boles | Ohio Valley ReSource
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Rural jails in Kentucky are increasingly relying on income derived from payments for holding state prisoners in county facilities, according to a new report by a think tank that advocates for criminal justice reform. To address overcrowding, states make payments to counties to hold convicted prisoners and pretrial detainees. States save money, and counties get… Read More
Inventor, Businessman, Activist: The Remarkable Life Of Ohio Valley Native Garrett Morgan
By: Sydney Boles | Ohio Valley ReSource
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On the night of July 24, 1916, a natural gas explosion near Cleveland trapped workers in a waterworks tunnel beneath Lake Erie. Rescuers sent in to recover the trapped men were themselves felled by “noxious fumes.” The Cleveland authorities knew just who to call: Garrett Morgan, an inventor who had recently given a demonstration of… Read More
Kentucky Project’s Demise Linked to International Fallout From Journalist’s Murder
By: Sydney Boles | Ohio Valley ReSource
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When battery manufacturer EnerBlu announced it would suspend plans for a new factory in Pikeville, Kentucky, the company used an intriguing phrase. “Unexpected geopolitical factors,” the company said, had soured the deal. According to a former executive at the company, those factors tied the rural eastern Kentucky development project to one of the world’s largest… Read More
Still Fighting: These Widows’ Stories Show Larger Effects of Black Lung Epidemic
By: Sydney Boles | Ohio Valley ReSource
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Nancy and Rich Potter had the kind of marriage that made other couples jealous. He’d take her on spontaneous trips. She’d wear her Daisy Dukes just for him. Joyce Birman said her late husband, George, made a terrible first impression. It was his apology for it that made her fall for him, hard. Vickie Salyers’… Read More
Still, They Persist: Black Lung Advocates Demonstrate At McConnell’s KY Office
By: Sydney Boles | Ohio Valley ReSource
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With just days left before a Congressional deadline, advocates for black lung treatment are still pushing Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell to secure funding for miners’ benefits. About two dozen people demonstrated Wednesday near McConnell’s regional office in London, Kentucky, carrying placards reading “Black Lung Kills” and singing along with a banjo tune modified for the occasion…. Read More
Amid Black Lung Surge Pulmonary Rehab Brings Hope To Disabled Miners
By: Sydney Boles | Ohio Valley ReSource
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Marcy Tate grew up in southwest Virginia in a coal mining family. “My father-in-law was a coal miner, my father was a coal miner, my grandfather was a coal miner, my great-grandfather was a coal miner,” she said. Tate knew what black lung disease looked like. In 2003, her father-in-law passed away from what Tate… Read More
Digging For Answers: New Report Points To Industry Obfuscation Of Mining’s Health Effects
By: Sydney Boles | Ohio Valley ReSource
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Jason Walker spends $50 per month on bottled water. He spends three hours each week standing by the small stream that runs near his house, pumping creek water into a thousand-gallon tank. “You have to catch the creek at the right time, when it’s clear,” Walker said. “Whatever you pump, whatever the creek looks… Read More
GOP Tax Bill Would Extend Endangered Funding for Disabled Miners
By: Sydney Boles | Ohio Valley ReSource
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As Appalachian coal miners suffer from a historic surge in black lung disease, a federal trust fund that supports some of those miners has been scheduled to lose a significant portion of its funding. A new tax bill in Congress includes a provision to extend the coal excise tax that supports the trust fund. With… Read More
KY Coal Mine That Belonged To WV Governor Causes Damaging Floods Again
By: Sydney Boles | Ohio Valley ReSource
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The rain started around 10:30 p.m. By midnight, the creek in front of Elvis and Laura Thackers’ house had swelled to a mighty flood, uprooting trees, moving boulders and surging right up to the couple’s front steps. The Thackers decided to abandon their home. But when they got into their Jeep, they found the flood… Read More