'Nashville cats' clawing at mountaintop removal

While most of Middle Tennessee has worked to recover from the widespread flooding of several weeks ago, some of its neighbors to the east are faced with preventable disasters everyday, writes a prominent country musician. "In north­east Ten­nessee, Ken­tucky and West Vir­ginia, man­made dis­as­ters are hap­pen­ing every­day in the form of moun­tain­top-removal coal min­ing," Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Emmylou Harris writes in The Tennessean. "These dis­as­ters are 100 per­cent avoid­able, but unlike Mid­dle Ten­nessee in the wake of the flood dis­as­ter, com­mu­ni­ties can­not recover from moun­tain­top removal."

To rally against mountaintop removal, Harris will join several musicians, including Dave Matthews, Ali­son Krauss, Patty Grif­fin, Buddy Miller, Kathy Mat­tea, Patty Love­less, Sam Bush, Big Kenny, Bran­don Young and others, to host a benefit at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in honor of the "Music Saves Mountains" campaign. Citing the long-history of Appalachian musicians performing at the Ryman, Harris writes the event will showcase a venue that has been a "friend to Appalachia and her people," and it is "not an anti-coal cam­paign, it is an effort to pro­mote sus­tain­able min­ing prac­tices that will not destroy our moun­tain heritage." (Read more)