The hills of Appalachia have long suffered the depredations of strip mining. Blasted and withered hills, scraped bare and leveled, scar these ancient hills from Pennsylvania into Tennessee. The mines were and are notorious for environmental degradation, social injustice and political corruption. But, through the long struggles of workers and activists, the worst injustices of the strip mines have been stopped. Conditions are safer there now, and the law requires that at least some restoration take place after the mining has ceased.

Yet strip mines continue to destroy land and disrupt homes—not only far off in the mountains, but surprisingly near—hardly a mile, in fact, as the crow flies, from the campus of the University of Tennessee. Across the Tennessee River and parallel to it is a road called Cherokee Trail, and where Cherokee Trail intersects Edington Road there is a strip mine of sorts—not the traditional coal mine of Appalachia, but a soil mine—two soil mines, actually, one operated by Tommy Lambert Excavating, the other by Hines Fine Soils.

These companies may not be mining coal, but their operations are hardly less destructive than the more familiar forms of strip mining. Hines Fine Soils has leveled acres of mature hardwood forest on Chapman Ridge and is now in the process of removing the mountain from the top down. Moreover the operation has been—until the a compliant Zoning Board bent the rules—illegal. For many years, the two companies mined soil on land zoned residential, in clear violation of the law. When they were caught, they sought the protection of sympathetic politicians, and in the face of widespread opposition from surrounding residents, were able to get the land rezoned from residential to agricultural—a designation which does, unfortunately, permit the mining of soil. Some residents think that the Zoning Board's sympathy is explained by the fact that the city of Knoxville obtains soil for landscaping purposes from Hines Fine Soils.

Like the coal companies, these urban miners seem to be willing to employ intimidation tactics to quell opposition. A resident who questioned the Hines operation at a public use on review hearing last Wednesday was personally threatened by Hines managers and employees, who said that they knew where she lived and that they were "going to take care of her."

And, as with the strip mines of Appalachia, the environmental cost of the soil mines of South Knoxville is considerable. The forest that used to cover the mountain has been clearcut and the entire top of the mountain flattened. Mud, garbage and silt are running off into Goose creek and the Tennessee River and clogging a new sewer system recently constructed nearby. Noise from trucks and machinery has plagued the surrounding neighborhoods. The trucks have degraded the pavement of Cherokee Trail, dropping soil and covering the road with a slippery, muddy mess.

And, like the coal mines, the strip mines of South Knoxville, have inflicted their social costs primarily on people who can't afford them. The mines are located in Vestal, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Residents of more affluent neighborhoods would have had the political muscle to keep such operations out. But Vestal, being poor, has long been a target for social and environmental injustice. It is, for example, also the location of three superfund sites, properties contaminated with toxic and radioactive materials by David Witherspoon, Inc., which used to process scrap from the nuclear weapons plants at Oak Ridge.

The political corruption and social and environmental injustices of the strip mines are not just history. If you don't believe it, just drive across the river to Cherokee Trail and Edington Road, where lie the strip mines of South Knoxville.