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Patty Wallace never planned to become an activist. She just
didn’t like what she saw.

At first she was shy to speak up, and she never said a curse
word until she was over 70. “Certain words, you need ’em for emphasis, and I
don’t care to use them anymore.”

Wallace turns 80 on April 5, and she took a few minutes recently
to look back on her 20-plus years of fighting for justice as a member of KFTC.

She calls KFTC “the most important organization I’ve ever
belonged to. I’ve learned so much and met the best people. I wouldn’t take
anything for my years with KFTC.”

Wallace first got involved with KFTC in the 1980s when a
company called Pyrochem wanted to build a hazardous waste incinerator in her
community in Lawrence County. As a Girl Scout leader, she had learned about
environmental issues in Eastern Kentucky and she was ready to defend her
community.

She heard about the Kentucky Fair Tax Coalition, as KFTC was
originally known, and got help from KFTC to organize and fight the incinerator.
She and her neighbors learned leadership skills, how to talk to local
officials, and how to lobby in Frankfort.

Working with other KFTC members, they helped to pass a
Hazardous Waste Local Control Bill in the Kentucky General Assembly in 1988 and
defeated Pyrochem for good. They also supported other KFTC chapters in different
battles across the state.

Wallace became KFTC chairperson in 1988, when the broad form
deed campaign was at its peak. Of all her many moments in KFTC, one of her
proudest was when the broad form deed amendment passed in 1988 and guaranteed
landowners some protection from surface mining.

As she became more active in KFTC’s statewide work, Wallace
kept an eye on her own community. She and her niece Ruth Colvin attracted
national media attention when they fought asbestos disposal at nearby Roe
Creek. When the local sheriff suggested they not enter Roe Creek without a gun,
Colvin got deputized and started carrying one. Audubon magazine dubbed them “Housewives from Hell,” and television
show Expose featured them in a
program about the influence of organized crime in the garbage business. They
were also featured in Dr. Richard Leakey’s Earth
Journal television program and AARP’s Modern
Maturity magazine.

On more than one occasion, Wallace has answered the question
of why she became an activist in this way:

“Because I am responsible and answerable to God for the
things that are within my power to change, even if only by the way I live and
speak out when I see a wrong.

Because there are many other children and adults who have no
one to speak for them.

Because I agree with two-thirds of the state who favor clean
air and water over jobs and economic development.

Because there are alternatives to the problems of this
dispose-all society.”

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Wallace’s current goal is to end mountaintop removal.

“To me, the most beautiful areas are these little hollows
with the rhododendron, the hemlock, the rocks. I love to discover a place like
that … and to think that we can just cover that up and destroy it all, it just
makes me sick,” she says.

If you’d like to honor Wallace’s 80^th birthday,
here are a few suggestions:

• Leave a comment for her below.
• Donate $80 to KFTC in her honor. Click here to donate online.
• Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper calling
  for an end to mountaintop removal and a transition to a cleaner, healthier and
  more prosperous economy in Eastern Kentucky. Follow this link for tips on
  writing a good letter.

 

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