"I'm Sick to My Stomach": Appalachians Poisoned By Their Water, Animals Dropping Dead—SILENCE From Politicians
"They're making the rich richer and the poor poorer; they don't care nothing about no little people like us," WV's Christina Day tells Jordan about the coal & gas companies poisoning their water
Hey folks, it’s Jordan. If you can, please support this important—and expensive—ON-THE-GROUND reporting. I’d like to stay on this story and potentially go back. In order to do so, we need to boost our funding.
While reporting from the backwoods of “coal country” West Virginia, we spoke with several residents who lives along Indian Creek and have private water wells they get their drinking water from. One of those interviews really shook me.
“All I know is they're making the rich richer and the poor poorer; they don't care nothing about no little people like us,” Christina Day, a resident of Indian Creek, West Virginia told me about the coal and gas companies residents believe contaminated their drinking water. WATCH INTERVIEW BELOW:
Like hundreds in this Wyoming County community—one of the poorest in America—Day and her stepson have been suffering from nonstop diarhea. “Just sick to my stomach,” she said about her stomach after drinking the water. When bathing, her water “feels oily,” she told Jordan.
When I asked Christina what she thought about the politicians being completely silent on this water crisis, she—perhaps—spoke for the roughly 80 to 100 million Americans who don’t vote.
“Evidently they ain’t got no heart, that’s why I don’t vote.”
If you’d like to let West Virginia’s politicians know what you think about them allowing corporations to poison an entire community, here’s how to reach them.
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection:
304-926-0440
Governor Jim Justice Office:
304-558-2000
Governor Jim Justice Mansion:
304-558-3588
Senator Joe Manchin:
202-224-3954 (D.C)
304-342-5855 (Charleston WV)
Senator Shelley Moore Capito:
202-224-6472 (D.C)
304-347-5372 (Charleston WV)
Rep. Carol Miller:
202-225-3452 (D.C)
304-250-6177 (Beckley WV)
681-945-6556 (Charleston WV)
This story is going to take a lot more digging and work on my part. Ideally, I will be able to go back there to dig further and talk to more residents. But, to be real: we need to grow our finding to keep covering these stories and funding expensive reporting ON-THE-GROUND. If you can, please support this important reporting.
Jordan