For years, coal miners would take canaries into the mines to warn of dangerous gases.  When the canaries died, the miners knew it was time to get out of the mine.  Now, we are the canaries, warning everyone about the dangers of coal before it is too late.  We no longer believe the big lie that coal is a cheap source of energy, and we are no longer willing to have our homes and lives sacrificed for coal company profits. 

    King Coal has dominated the economy and the politics of Kentucky and central Appalachia for the past hundred years.  Coal has brought great wealth to a few in Kentucky, and a decreasing number of jobs to some, but it leaves too many scars on the land and people and not much else.  Harlan County, my home county, has produced over 1 billion tons of coal in the past century, yet today we are still one of the poorest counties in the state and nation.  Coal has left us with polluted water, a corrupted political system, poor schools, too many unhealthy people, and a disappearing heritage. And today the destruction is increasing.

    For decades, the people of Kentucky have fought to protect our homes, our land, our water, and our jobs from the worst abuses of the coal industry.  And though we have often been successful, the coal industry is always working to get around the laws and new communities to exploit.

    The Canary Project is building a better future – beyond coal!  We are building awareness about the dangers from coal because everyone that breathes air, drinks water, and lives on this planet is affected by the production and burning of coal.  We are developing the skills we need to protect our communities and homes.  We are working for a new economy to sustain, instead of exploit, our workers and communities.  We are supporting new energy sources that will replace the burning of coal.  And, we are winning campaigns to protect our state and build a better future.

Teri Blanton, Madison County

I’ve been fighting bad coal companies since I was nine years old and a company used a broad form deed to force their way onto our homeplace to auger mine.  In the last forty years, I’ve seen strip mining, deep mining, auger mining, mine blowouts, sludge pond breaks, blasting and flooding.  But mountaintop removal is the worst. 
Read more about mountaintop removal. 

                  Patty Amburgey, Letcher County