Vulnerable Families: Understanding the Legacy of Property Rights, Spoiled Water Quality, Poverty, and Lax Regulation of Big Coal, Petroleum and Chemicals for Families in West Central Appalachia, USA

This review and analysis focuses on personal and public responses to the impact of powerful companies, legal regulation favoring development of resources, and nostalgia for a way of life in western Appalachia, USA with specific examples drawn from Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. A brief overview of the role of extraction and federal land and mining claims preferences and lack of enforcement in mining safety and will put these issues into context. Poverty in a region of low opportunity plays a role in how families respond to extraction options and proposals in terms of concepts of home and sentiment. Current mountain top removal for coal and fracking for gas and oil ventures are built on an extension of long standing public attitudes and legal policies favoring extraction. Chemical plants have also taken advantage of the lax legal climate. Jobs in impoverished areas are a high priority. The traditional coal-mining jobs that guaranteed a good family wage and did not require postsecondary education have shrunk to a minor influence in the region, but the myth of its potential return still holds political and familial attention. Many families have strong ties to localities and communities and when they migrate to find jobs, it is often seen as a temporary measure. Higher education may be seen as a mixed blessing, because it often leads to mobility away from the region. Family and community research in the region suggest that support for change and reform may be developing, but that the powerful corporations, normative traditions and legal structures remain important as barriers to family health and well-being. For the families living in these areas few will get enough from licensing and royalties to make a move or send children to college and improve their lives.