The Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team

Founded in response to requests from watershed groups throughout coal country, the work of the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team (ACCWT) supports a growing movement that is quietly bringing new strength and new hope to the Appalachian region. The Watershed Team arms community organizations and watershed-based projects with the training, tools, and volunteer support necessary to help local citizens become effective environmental stewards, community leaders, and accelerators of change in places indelibly marked by the environmental legacy of pre-regulatory coal mining. Together, the Team and its local partners are propelling a new Appalachian economy based on conservation and development, strong partnerships, and new hope.

A unique partnership between the Office of Surface Mining, AmeriCorps*VISTA, and coal country watershed groups allows the ACCWT to target problems associated with the legacy of pre-regulatory coal-mining in Appalachian watersheds.  The Team places, trains, supports, and coordinates a dynamic, successful group of up to 55 OSM/VISTA volunteers who live and work in host communities in Appalachian coal country to promote social and environmental change at  the grassroots level.  Through a program similar to “a domestic Peace Corps,” OSM/VISTA members serve full-time with their local sponsoring organizations or projects for at least a year. 

Today the Team serves the eight states that encompass the majority of coal country in Appalachia: AL, KY, MD, OH, PA, TN, VA and WV.  The ACCWT is the only regional organization currently addressing the unique challenges of coal country in these states -- all similar in geography, geology, and history, all impacted by pre-regulatory coal mining and its environmental and economic aftereffects, all characterized by a unique natural beauty and proud laboring heritage.

In addition to providing full-time OSM/VISTA volunteers, the ACCWT has also been able to provide its OSM/VISTA-sponsoring local partners and some of its other partners with the following:

·         A free, all-expenses-paid biannual Team Training for OSM/VISTAs and members of their sponsoring organizations, providing skills in grant writing, board development, fiscal sustainability, water monitoring, water quality project development, and more

·         Full-time OSM/VISTA support from our Coordination office based in Beckley, WV

·         Access to a computer donation program for qualifying groups

·         Access to free AmeriCorps*VISTA Summer Associates for qualifying groups

·         A region-wide network of ideas and experience through our email list, web forum, and support staff

The ACCWT and Dr. T. Allan Comp (ACCWT Founder and Director) are both recipients of numerous national awards. The ACCWT was named the Governmental Partner of the Year by the National Summit of Mining Communities in 2006 and received the U.S. Department of the Interior Environmental Achievement Award in 2004. Allan's work with his AMD&ART Project won a Green Design Award from the PA Environmental Council and the prestigious Phoenix Award from the EPA Brownfields Program, among others.

 

Appalachian Coal Country:  A Proud Heritage, a Challenging Future

Coal mining supported regional economic growth for over a century in Appalachian coal country, but the gradual closure of many mines since World War II has left behind a depressed economy and a  landscape compromised by years of resource extraction.  Mining conducted prior to 1977, when mining first became subject to environmental regulation, resulted in untreated flows of acidic, metals-laden water (acid mine drainage or AMD) that leave streams covered in orange sludge and devoid of aquatic habitat to this day.  In many former coal towns, where adequate sewage infrastructure was never installed, numerous “straight pipes” still feed untreated sewage directly from household toilets into creeks.  Today, 30-45% of households in Kentucky, West Virginia, and other Appalachian states are without sewers and over 3.5 million people live within one mile of an Abandoned Mine Land site. 

The ACCWT works to strengthen the efforts of the small citizens groups that are tackling these issues locally through water monitoring, water quality project development, environmental education and outreach, and economic development projects based on local environmental and cultural assets. In coal-impacted communities where traditions of swimming, boating, and fishing once connected locals with their ecosystems and with one another, watershed restoration projects offer a site around which citizens can gather -- renewing civic engagement and natural resource-based economic possibility even as they restore the rivers and streams themselves.