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Moving Mountains

Deadline: Dec 31, 2007

Details:

A new book by Penny Loeb is out and getting great reviews!!

In late 1994, wells in Pie, West Virginia, began to go dry, leaving many residents of the small coal-mining town without potable water. When local housewife Trish Bragg made a few phone calls in an effort to solve this problem, she had no idea that her inquiries would eventually lead to her becoming the named plaintiff in a major lawsuit, a summa cum laude college graduate, and a hero of her community.

Moving Mountains recounts the struggle of Trish Bragg and other ordinary West Virginians for fair treatment by the coal companies that dominate the local economies of southern West Virginia. The collateral effects of mountaintop removal, deep mining, and other mining practices are felt most profoundly in the communities that supply much of the labor for these mining operations, which results in divided loyalties among families that have made  their living from coal mining for generations.

Author Penny Loeb spent nine years chronicling the triumphs and setbacks of people in the West Virginia coalfields--people caught between the economic opportunities provided by coal and the detriments to health and to quality of life that are so often the by-products of the coal industry. The result of her work is an account of the human and environmental costs of coal extraction, and the inspirational grassroots crusade to mitigate those costs.

Penny Loeb, a freelance writer who lives outside of Washington, D.C., is a  former senior editor at U.S. News and World Report and a former investigative reporter for Newsday. She has received numerous awards for journalism and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.

Reviews:

"Loeb compassionately chronicles 10 years of grassroots efforts by citizens of southern West Virginia to protect their homes from coalmining damage."--Publishers Weekly

"Moving Mountains helps us understand the very real threats mountaintop removal mining poses to the environment, to coalfield residents and to all of us. It shows, too, both the staggering difficulty and the heartening possibility of fighting back. We need this book."--Anne Shelby, author of Appalachian Studies

"For more than 20 years, investigative journalist Penny Loeb has shone the light of publicity in dark corners, first for newspaper readers, later for magazine readers. Her book, Moving Mountains, demonstrates that Loeb's investigative talents translate well to the most in-depth journalistic medium of all. Painstakingly reported and compellingly written, Moving Mountains is an unforgettable account of environmental degradation, those who cause it, those who suffer from it, and those who try to alleviate it."--Steve Weinberg, investigative journalist

Contact Information:

Sierra Club West Virginia
Book is available via the web at Amazon.com or check your local book store