The trip to the top of Cook Mountain covers rugged, steep terrain. It is hard to imagine that at one point in history, members of the Cook family had walked up and down the mountainside from their mountaintop farmstead to attend school and visit area businesses in the valley “hollow” below.

Nowadays, the Cook family has made their homes in the hollow itself, opting for convenience over the beauty of the panoramic views that greet visitors who are hardy enough to make it to the peak of the mountain.

At least eight families, all descendants of William Chap, a civil war veteran who fought for the Union, and whose final resting place is atop Cook Mountain, have remained near their original ancestral home place.

Like many Appalachian families, the Cooks can trace their lineage back to those first brave mountaineers from England who settled the area.

It is with a strong sense of heritage and family pride that Danny Cook escorts this reporter to the top of Cook Mountain, to view first-hand his family’s cemetery sites.

Cook’s truck takes each mile of dirt road with the stamina of the little engine that could.

The condition of the road from the James Creek side of the mountain to grave of William Chap, leaves little doubt that a typical four-door sedan would have a difficult time making its way up the steep road.

Just as obvious is the fact that Danny Cook has traveled this route countless times and is as familiar with where the road curves and dips as he is with his own face.

“I used to visit the cemeteries as often as I could to cut back the weeds and do a bit of maintenance,” Cook shares.

“I didn’t know any of those that are buried up there, but they’re still family. To me, the cemetery is their home now. It helps me to know that I can go and visit them whenever I want to,” he said.

No road blocks impede the progress of Cook’s truck to the first grave site, that of Civil War veteran William Chap. With an American flag flying high above on a tree and metal fence outlining the border of the grave site, it is apparent that the Cook family has taken great pains in maintaining the final resting place of their ancestors.

“This is the location of the old farmhouse. As you can see, it must have been beautiful to live up here. We’ve found items from the old homestead in years past; there’s the old wooden fence line, and we once found what we think was a tub,” he shares.

Knowing that a great grandfather six generations removed is buried on the top of Cook Mountain has been an invisible bond that has tied Danny Cook to the area all his life.

Danny says he understands the need and necessity to mine coal, but is adamant in his stance that the surface mine operating near his ancestral homestead and family cemetery sites is creeping way too close for comfort.

“Our family would come up here at least once a year to visit, almost like a reunion, and we would take this old jeep trail to the main family cemetery,” he said.

According to Cook, at last count the main family cemetery was the final resting place of 27 members of his family.

“Now, in order for those of us who live on the James Creek side to get to the main family cemetery, we either have to go back down the mountain, travel back around 85 to Lindytown, and travel back up the mountain on that side,” he said.

“They’ve been setting up these road blocks for a couple months now, not giving us access to the Jeep Trail that takes up from his cemetery,” Cook says, pointing to the grave site of William Chap, “to the big cemetery.”

Within a few feet, the first road block is encountered. The further down the road we travel, though, the higher the road blocks become. A total of five road blocks hinder the pilgrimage from the grave site of William Chap to the main cemetery. At least two of the road blocks are as tall, or taller, than Cook’s truck.

Along the road, four deep holes have been drilled into the old Jeep Trail. According to sources at the DEP, these holes are most likely core sample drilling holes.

Once at the main cemetery, there are no large piles of dirt and debris blocking visitors from the edge of the mountain, where surface mining activities are taking place. There are no barricades, no signs, and nobody supervising the safety of visitors to this main cemetery site.

The view from the cemetery looks and sounds different than it must have centuries ago when these Cook family members were laid to rest- now with loud machinery and barren stretches of gray rock on the facing vista .

“They’ve come far enough. Far enough and it’s time they were told to back off. The coal company, Horizon Resources, needs to back away its coal mining from this cemetery. This is the final resting place of my ancestors. It’s where they chose to spend eternity until Judgment Day and they’re not God, so they shouldn’t be disturbing their peace,” Cook said.

“This is sacred ground,” he said.

The Coal Valley News contacted Tom Clarke, Director of Mining and Reclamation with the DEP at Charleston. According to Clarke, he had received an email dated July 28 that the access routes on both sides were open.

The email, he said, came from his Assistant Director at Logan, Benny Campbell, and it was agreed that the access roads were not part of the coal company’s permit application.

“If we find a violation, we cite them ad we take appropriate actions,” Clarke said.

However, nobody has been cited, as the coal company is not in violation with their laws, according to Benny Campbell.

According to Campbell, since the coal company was leaving a portion of the road open for relatives to reach the one grave site via the James Creek side of the mountain and a second road open for those relatives to access the main cemetery via the Lindytown side of the mountain, they remained within the letter of the law.

“I don’t see anywhere in our Chapter 22 Article 3 of the Mining and Reclamation Law that they are in violation; it doesn’t say anything about access roads from one cemetery to another,” said Benny Campbell, Assistant Director of the Logan region.

The Logan Office of the DEP covers Boone, Mingo, Logan, Wayne, Lincoln and parts of Kanawha and Raleigh Counties.

“More than 60 percent of the coal mined in West Virginia is regulated from this office here. When fully staffed we have 60 officials.”

Currently, the office is not fully staffed, and Campbell says that four positions are open and the DEP has been diligent in getting those positions filled.

“I know it is an inconvenience now, but I anticipate one of these days the coal company will build a road there and there will be a really nice access road from there to there,” Campbell said, pointing to the two cemeteries on a topography map on his desk.

Allen Kuhn, environmental inspector specialist at the Logan office reiterated, “The only thing [the coal company] has to do is provide access to that property. It doesn’t say how.”

Clarke said that according to an email he had received dated July 28 from Benny Campbell, Assistant Director at Logan, Danny Cook had not contacted the agency, although the matter had been brought to their attention via area resident Maria Gunnoe.

“Maria Gunnoe had made complaints about cemetery road washouts.”

According to their approved mining permit, Horizon Resources LLC is allowed to mine within 100 feet of the cemetery. Only one person, Michael Cook, requested an informal conference to express concerns about access to the cemeteries after notice of the mining application was made public in a legal notice.

That legal notice ran in the Feb. 20, 27 and March 5 and 12 editions of the Coal Valley News as a Class-IV legal advertisement.

The public comment hearing was conducted on May 5, at 6 p.m. at the Van Nutritional Center. A total of six people attended that hearing, at which Mr. Michael Cook issued his concerns for open access.

When Campbell was asked how he would react if this was his family’s cemetery, the Assistant Director of Mining and Reclamation said, “Number one, I ‘d have dialogue with the coal company and contact the government officials. As long as there was drivable access to either one, I’d be fine with that.”