“Close up debate”

As dissent mounted over Tennessee’s strip mining policy in 1973, the Tennessee House of Representatives Committee on Conservation and Environment passed a resolution to go on a three day tour of strip mine sites in Harriman, Tennessee, and Morgan County. On the first day of the tour, legislators William C. Watson (D) of Madisonville, Frank Garner (D) of Ripley, and Victor Ellis (D) of Nashville ask questions of Jack Walls, one of the largest strip mine operators in East Tennessee and the main spokesperson for the strip-mine interests during the trip. Heleny Cook (second from left), an organizer for the environmentalist group Save Our Cumberland Mountains, and J.W. Bradley (third from left), the president of Save Our Cumberland Mountains, listen intensely. Don Todd, of Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, wearing horn-rimmed glasses in the rear, also watches the scene in earnest.