by Paul Hays
Saturday, Sep. 02, 2000 at 9:40 PM
soyboy_@hotmail.com
Appalachians are suffering in areas of mainly parts of 4 states with large areas of Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. This is where the poverty and lack of support is hurting the worst. Secondarly outside corporations are locating in these areas or leaving these areas with little or no regard for laws that were meant to protect these peoples. The federal government is robbing the Black Lung fund according to the Nation Magazine.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on April 29, 2000 on page A-9 that two bank executives were convicted in Keystone West Virginia of obstruction of how 5 million dollars in assets vanished from the only bank in the town.
The report states that the disappearance could cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as much as 0 million dollars US Dollars. Also , it could become one of the 10 largest U.S. bank failures since the Great Depression of the 10930's. 2 Babk officers were convicted, one of obstruction and conspiracy and face 15 and 5 years in prison and 0,000 and 0,000 dollars US Dollars in fines. The bank was 95 years old and was located in southern West Virginia not far from the states of Virginia nad Kentucky.
Alexander Cockburn in a report about the Black Lung Fund reported that the Bill Clinton-Albert Gore government has stolen more money from the Black Lung Fund that Ronald Reagan and George Bush did.
In Appalachian Ohio near West Virginia, a grass-roots organization has been working with 10,000 citizens to close an incineratir that is burning 1,000,000 pounds of hazardous waste per day 1,000 feet from an elementary school. Albert Gore has promised to close the building which is owned by a Swiss Company with organized crime ties. The governor of Ohio is against the WTI facilty and the State Attorney General ruled it illegal. The regional EPA administrator declrared it unnecessary.
Teri Swearington, the nurse who is leading the group has been arrested 3 times and has received aid from Greenpeace, The Washington Post and Congress of the Streets in Atlanta.
Original: Appalachia Throbbing From Assaults on People and Environment:Corruption Finds a