Senate Intern Gets STEEP Tour


Jan 31, 2018

As part of our Show and Tell Energy Education and Policy (STEEP)  project, we hosted a US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee intern conducting research to better understand the attitudes of Appalachians on renewable energy. He enjoyed our Mountain Music and Medicinals event, met and visited local residents, and got a tour of the area. He saw mountaintop removal up close, the old Marsh Fork Elementary School next door to an Alpha Natural Resources preparation plant and 2.8-billion-gallon toxic sludge dam, the Upper Big Branch site and memorials to the 29 miners killed there, and communities where the property values have decreased by over 90%.

Showing and telling helps provide support for clean, renewable energy and an end to the devastating impacts of the coal industry. Once we get our solar power system installed, we can demonstrate that positive alternative for all our visitors and neighbors to see. Huge thanks to everyone who has made and is making the STEEP project possible.