Am I missing something (like the point of this post)? :)

We're posting photos of our trip to SWVA.  Does that bother you?  If so, why?

I was aware you were taking a trip!

most people in NoVa do not know?

We are a far more diverse state than most people in NoVa have any idea.  And it helps us to understand the points of view and concerns of citizens in the Fighting 9th, which will be important when we are involved in statewide races.

Interestingly you assume that I'm in Northern Virginia.

Have you ever been to Caroline County by the way?

he was referring to the fact that the editors of this blog are NOVA based and that many of the readers and contributors are not SWVA based.

Wise
Lee
Matthews
Russell
Scott
Smyth
Giles
Grayson
Wythe
Dickinson
Buchanan
Tazewell
Bland
Washington

I have lived in Virginia since 1982.  Even before I lived here I had been to Virginia multiple times

Besides our house in Arlington we own property in Louisa County and have used that as a basis go explore a good deal of the state

And as I noggted in response to another comment, since most of the editors and the majority of the voters are NoVa based, and the Southwestern part of the state is probably the part with which we are least familiar, the diary was perfectly appropriate

I must be missing the point of your comment.

Anyway, nice pics Lowell.  Thanks!

That blue tube is the most ugly thing I've ever seen across a roadway, and the trailer loaded with logs drives home the reality of all that digging and cutting activity.  Look at the tube - it's angled downward because it's coming off a hill.  Look at the trees.  They're on a truck and not on the hillsides which are being excavated or worked over so coal can be excavated.  What do you get when you remove trees and turn hillsides into nothing but dirt?  Runoff, lots and lots of runoff.  Where does the runoff go?  Into the streams, the roadways, and the homes and towns at the bottom of those hillsides.  What I see in your photos - and correct me if I'm wrong - is massive potential for erosion, possibly for major mudslides if heavy rains hit.  Looking at the background of the photos I see a hillside which appears to be mostly shale or slate.  This means there's little topsoil under those trees.  I would be very concerned if that area gets hit with the kind of rains that hit the South a few months ago.

I understand the companies claim to be replacing the trees as they go along, but the pictures show how truly ugly mountaintop removal is.

The Virginia Division of Forestry, one of the best in the nation, maintains a vigorous, vigorous, vigorous enforcement program to prevent soil erosion and runoff.  Loggers and landowners absolutely cannot cut timber  without scrupulous inspection by your Virginia Division of Forestry.  It is incorret to suggest that all tree harvesting leads to environmental damage.

See for yourself why Virginia Forest Watch maintains this website (http://www.virginiaforestwatch.org/watchdog.html) to report all logging jobs.

BTW, the coal companies are chipping the forests and rolling them away in rail cars preparatory to taking the mountains down. A fair amount of Wise Co. is under permit for mountaintop removal.

Thanks for posting the photos from your trip to far southwest Virginia, Lowell, but I found your selection of them - including the "blue tube", empty coal train cars, a strip mining-scarred mountain top and pulp wood on a truck trailer - to be surprisingly negative, as was your response to Timothy Watson's query about them.

Yes, there is a driving need in this nation - and the world - to find new, "greener" and more environmentally friendly and efficient sources of energy and to break away from our dependence on foreign oil, but posting disparaging photographs and comments is not what I would consider to be the best approach to doing so.

To me, most of your photos illustrated various aspects of the current economy in a depressed, high-unemployment sector of our state that, like it or not, still relies on coal mining and pulp wood production for jobs.  That will not change overnight.

I agree with Ken; please consider including a mixture of some of the more positive aspects of this part of the state, such as the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Appalachian Trail, to name just a couple of them.

Then, perhaps, such photographs could be compared and contrasted with those of eternal traffic jams and visible air pollution in northern Virginia.

Unquestionably, we'll need the support of the Ninth Congressional District in this year's various political races in order to win.  

Is your pictorial approach above the best way to promote the needs of the area and to garner Democratic support here?

I, for one, think not, but...

Thanks again!

Steve    

looking at those first set of pictures my first impression was that Norton actually looks like a nice place to visit -- seriously.

I think the lead-in photos helped to offer some context.  

It would actually be kind of cool if someone with more than a passing understanding of the area posted some pictures to give a broader snapshot of the area.  

The subject lends itself to two separate diaries.  It would also be good to get more local perspective on the strip mining issue.  

the point.

The region IS naturally beautiful and it's very discouraging and depressing for us (at least me - I'll let Lowell speak for himself) to see first hand the things I suspected we would see.  I certainly would NOT say this is a bad/ugly area - just that the destructive industries are living up to their reputations and, well, destroying the natural beauty.

Are the traffic jams and sprawl up here any better?  Of course not.  I could go out and take some pictures if you'd like, but unfortunately everyone already knows what an ugly traffic jams look like so it wouldn't serve much purpose.  Or maybe it would.  Perhaps if everyone posted photos of the ugly things that are happening in their regions we'd all be more motivated to fight to address those problems.

And I certainly don't think that pointing out the environmental damage we saw during our trip is going to cause problems within the Democratic party.  If nothing else, it should help people see what we saw first hand and what we've been upset about for a long time.  Something many Democrats are against - the destruction of natural beauty in the name of corporate profits.

As for the local economic issues (not the far away corporate profit centers), I completely agree that this is a very difficult situation.  While I don't have an answer (I sure wish I did), I don't believe chasing after a finite resource, especially in this manner, can be the only way to address the economic problems many people face in that area.

I also completely agree with this.

SW Virginia is so different, yet it is a place I have visited a number of times for mountain hiking.  Coal remains vital to the region, and I still believe clean coal technologies are vital for the future of the U.S.  Bush, of course, failed to see clean coal to fruition, by giving up on the Carbon-Capture plant he dubbed "FutureGen".  In that way, he gave up on rural coal-based communities in the process, just like he gave up on America so many times with his inept policies.

Rural communities should be more reliant on coal because it's been so great for them? Bush hasn't done enough to promote reliance on coal? Quite an interesting perspective you've got there.

as "clean coal."  In fact, every part of the process, from mining it to transporting it to burning it is dirty as can be. It's time for wind, solar, geo, etc.

Take a trip down Copper Ridge or Red Oak Ridge just outside of Castlewood (just over the Wise County line in Russell County) and post some pictures of the views from the ridges ...or go over to Burke's Garden near Tazewell.  The photos you posted are interesting and newsworthy, but there are also some breathtakingly beautiful areas of Far SW Virginia that deserve publicity lest your readers think it's all erosion and desecration by the coal and timber industries.  Thanks for an interesting story.  

We're back in NOVA now after spending only 3 days on this trip -- and one of those days was taken up largely by NASCAR.  Anyway, there's a lot to see in SWVA, and we only scratched the surface obviously.  Next time, we'll need to spend a lot longer...

I represent a lot of mechanics and appreciate the incredible science which goes into automotive racing, but if I ever go to a NASCAR race it'll probably be just for the companionship, barbecue, and beer.