Inside Appalachia

Can Trump bring coal jobs back to Appalachia? We’re a year-and-a-half into his presidency, and some people, like coal operator Barry Estep , are hopeful. “Maybe this is a light at the end of the tunnel we’ve all been hoping for, to get things turned around and changed some.” But others are not so sure that coal has a long-term future.

This week, we’re listening back to a popular show we did back in 2016, featuring award winning storytellers — telling some whopping tale and lies. We’ll be featuring storytellers from the West Virginia Storyteller’s Guild , all of whom have competed and won prizes across the country.

On this week’s episode of Inside Appalachia, we’ll visit Minden, West Virginia, where residents are asking the federal government to consider adding their town to an official list of places most seriously contaminated by hazardous waste. But this nearly 40-year-old program’s budget is set to be cut by nearly a third in the Trump administration's latest spending plan. We’ll learn about how that may affect cleanup efforts for communities that are designated as U.S. Department of Environmental

This week on Inside Appalachia we’re going to listen back to an episode we originally aired in 2017, about veterans who are turning to traditional farming, for therapy. We’ll travel to Sugar Bottom Farm in Clay County West Virginia to meet Veteran Eric Grandon, the first veteran to go through the Veterans and Warriors to Agriculture program.

The 10 counties in the United States most at risk for an HIV outbreak are all in Central Appalachia, a ccording to a 2016 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Compiled after a 2015 outbreak of the disease in southern Indiana, the report found that places with a combination of high poverty, low access to health care, and rampant intravenous drug were mostly likely to experience a similar outbreak of HIV and hepatitis C. This week on Inside Appalachia we explore how community

Last year on Inside Appalachia we aired an episode about Grandparents raising grandchildren. Our newsroom just won a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for this series, so today, we’re listening back to this important story.

Our region has challenges, from the economic decline of the coal industry, to the opioid epidemic, there’s work to do in our communities. In this episode of Inside Appalachia, we’ll hear from several people who are trying to reinvigorate our region with opportunities for change. We’ll also hear from some younger voices in Appalachian, North Carolina about growing up in the mountains.

Several federally funded job-training programs have emerged in recent years designed to help revitalize coal country. In 2017 alone, the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal-state partnership focused on economic development since the mid-1960s , approved more than $150 million in projects for the region. But how successful are these programs, and what are the challenges?

It’s been a year since we started following six Appalachians as they grappled with whether to stay in their home state or leave for better opportunities. On this week’s episode, we’ll revisit those we profiled in our Struggle to Stay series – and reflect on what we learned as we helped them tell their stories.

In this week's episode of Inside Appalachia, we visit communities impacted by creation of flood-control lakes. In one, the Village of Lilly, about 40 families were pushed off their land along the Bluestone River in Summers County, W.Va., in the 1940s. Many of these families had lived there for more than 200 years.