News of the Arroyo
Title: | YOUNG MAN IS PART OF PUSH TO ANALYZE, CLEAN UP LETCHER'S TAINTED STREAMS |
Subtitle: | Local problem, local help |
Date: | 2006-11-30 |
Summary: | November 30, 2006 - Here's a watershed hero from Kentucky. |
Author: | Linda B. Blackford |
Publication: | Kentucky Herald-Leader |
Content: | Evan Smith can pick his way over the rocks of a small stream deftly, even with grace. Deftness is a necessity because when the water is bright orange, you really don\'t want to fall in. The grace comes from a lot of practice. In the past year, Smith might have found his way to just about every bright orange stream in Letcher County. \"See this place?\" he asked, pointing to part of the Little Dry Fork, which flows in a terra cotta hue just outside of Whitesburg. \"It didn\'t used to be like this. So now we have to ask, how do you keep this from happening, and once this is happening how do you follow up on it?\" These are good questions, ones that Smith, 24, means to try to answer this year as part of the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team, which is trying to clean up acid mine drainage. It\'s paid for through Volunteers in Service to America, a program familiar to Letcher County residents, who have seen plenty of VISTA volunteers try to rescue them from poverty since the 1960s. For much of the past year, he\'s tested water all over Letcher County, finding streams hurt by the heavy metals from acid mine drainage, but also by raw sewage, sediment, and litter. Letcher County, where the Kentucky, Cumberland and Big Sandy Rivers begin, has some of the cleanest -- and dirtiest -- water in the state. It\'s not clear just how dangerous the water is when it turns bright orange from iron and other heavy metals, Smith said, but nothing lives in it, and no one wants it anywhere near their water supply. Letcher County\'s problems needn\'t be explained to Smith, who comes from the county. And he\'s not just any native son. Not only has his family been in Letcher for generations, but his parents, Herbie Smith and Elizabeth Barret, are well-known filmmakers at Appalshop, an Appalachian arts and education center, and his uncle, Carroll Smith, is the county\'s former judge-executive. Evan Smith, however, would rather stay on the topic of clean water. Most of the acidic creek pollution is caused by water running out of old, abandoned mines, some of them closed in the 1940s and 1950s. Evan\'s job is to figure out how bad the problem is by establishing a research baseline on the water, and part is to motivate local, state and federal folks to clean it up. Dipping water out of streams might not be exactly what he imagined himself doing when he graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in sociology, but it\'s not too far off. \"I knew I wanted to be in Letcher County,\" he said. And \"I knew I wanted to help figure out ways people can improve the places where they live. \"What I like about water is it\'s very tangible, it affects us all.\" Crucial work He sounds remarkably clearheaded for a 24-year-old. \"I think Evan is really thinking hard about how to play a role that fits his priorities, so he\'s just engaged in the reality of the place in a way that for me is just wonderful to watch,\" said his father, Herbie. \"I remember when Appalshop was first starting, the Vietnam War was on, and we were very much into being controversial. In many ways, he\'s smarter than we were at that age -- he\'s thinking harder about what his role could be and should be.\" Evan grew up in a family and a place where the idea of civic life -- or more important, the idea that citizens can effect change -- was as integral to life as the mountains rising all around. Whitesburg is the home not only of Appalshop, which has long been a voice for the region, but of Harry Caudill, author of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, and the muckraking Mountain Eagle newspaper. \"He grew up with a family who believes that if you want to, you can make change happen,\" said Alice Jones, Smith\'s mentor at Eastern Kentucky University. \"I think he believes it and he lives it.\" He attended Letcher County schools until middle school. Then the family moved to Pikeville so he and his sister could go to the high-performing schools of the Pikeville Independent School District. When he graduated from Oberlin in 2005, he heard about the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team, and applied. Allan Comp, who administers the program from Washington, D.C., through the U.S. Office of Surface Mining, was thrilled. \"Kentucky has been one of the hardest places to get things started because the watershed groups are among the weakest,\" Comp said. \"Evan was a gift because he wanted to work there.\" Jones, who runs the EKU Environmental Research Institute, says Smith\'s work is crucial. \"The problems of these communities won\'t be solved by people from outside the region,\" she said. \"Evan is trying not only to answer the question of what\'s going on here, but what are the practical ways to fix it.\" Jones thinks that Smith\'s personal style aids his work: \"He\'s very low-key; people know who he is and he knows them and their kids. When you spend time with Evan, it doesn\'t take very long to recognize his sincerity and passion.\" Consumed by water Evan has committed to his position for another year. He\'s started the process of getting non-profit status for a watershed group called Headwaters. About 20 volunteers are already helping gather water samples. Eventually, the group will work on mitigation, putting limestone in affected streams to lower the pH, and creating wetlands that clean the heavy metals out of the water as it comes out of mines. He likes the flexibility of his work. One day he\'s testing water, another he\'s showing a PowerPoint presentation about what he does to a group of visiting Gaines Fellows from the University of Kentucky. That still leaves time for his girlfriend, his family and his guitar. \"Water has consumed most of my life,\" he said with a shy smile. \"I say I\'m up to my neck in it.\" After the grant is over, who knows? He sees himself in Eastern Kentucky, but as he says, \"I\'m 24 years old, and I ain\'t got it all figured out yet.\" Still, his future in this kind of advocacy work is assured if that\'s what he wants, says Comp. Among some 30 volunteers in Appalachia in the same program, Evan is the \"quietest and the strongest of them all,\" Comp said. \"The combination of his really deep understanding of the area and the politics, he brings it together in a way no other individuals could do. Plus, he\'s willing to take a couple of years out of his life and do some good.\" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reach Linda Blackford at (859) 231-1359 or lblackford@herald-leader.com. |
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