“You don’t destroy your nest,” warns Patty Frasher Wallace.
She keeps a quote from retired Berea sociology Professor Perley Ayer on her refrigerator: “If you see something needs to be done and if in the end it’s not done, then you and I are those who did not do it.”

The stay at home mother of four children, Wallace followed her husband, Virgil, around eastern Kentucky with his construction and mining work. Living in the various counties, she saw a pattern

of destruction to the land and environment. “I couldn’t see leaving things this way for the next generation,” she reasoned. Seeing land abused in the interest of development and mining, she was instrumental in banding together her Appalachian neighbors, primarily women, to keep her Kentucky “nest” an environmentally sound place to live.

Already a volunteer in the children’s schools, she was deeply involved in clubs, church and community issues. Wallace wasn’t content to see environmental problems and not address them. “My husband and I don’t always agree on issues and it’s no wonder,” she says. “He’s made a living ‘moving dirt’ all around this state: building roads, paving, developing, and some strip mining. I, on the other hand, believe in saving everything.”

When Wallace learned the county she lived in was working to attract a recycling center owned by PYROCHEM, she researched the proposal. It became apparent to her the “recycling center” was really a euphemism the Lawrence County officials used to describe a hazardous waste incinerator.

Wallace and other opponents realized they needed additional support to go against the county officials and their legislative allies who also promoted the incinerator. That’s when Wallace learned of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC), a statewide organization made up of citizens committed to rectifying “unfair political, economic and social systems.” KFTC helped Wallace learn to organize a campaign, lobby in the political arenas and in general, give support to her grassroots group. In 1988 the incinerator was defeated and some county officials, once for the incinerator, were now on Wallace and KFTC’s side.
“KFTC taught me to be politically involved in matters important to me,” she recalls. “Before KFTC I naively believed you could just leave political matters to the politicians and they would take care of you.”

Wallace has been active in KFTC for over 20 years, supporting several statewide causes. Highly regarded by her peers, she was elected as the organization’s third chairperson from 1988 to ’90. “I was hesitant at first to speak publicly but gained confidence over the years. Now I can speak to any group that needs my attention,” she says. “My advice to other women is don’t let yourself be intimidated.”

Wallace is proud of KFTC milestone accomplishments such as abolishment of the broad form deed, defeat of another PYROCHEM incinerator proposed in Point Pleasant, W.Va., only 70 miles across the river from the original Lawrence County site; and defeat of a proposed Roe Creek asbestos landfill by an out-of-state firm.

“Usually, these controversial issues come about in primarily poor, minority areas with high unemployment because it’s easy to get a start there,” Wallace notes. “They get the groundwork done before the public knows the whole story. A lot of people are swayed by promises of jobs and wages, but if it’s not in the best interest of the environment, it’s not a long term solution. There are better ways to use the land.”

Wallace and her niece Ruth Colvin with the "Toxic Mobile," as it was dubbed by Audubon Magazine. When she sold this car it had 230,000 miles on the odometer, most from trips to Frankfort, Ky. and Washington, D.C.

Fossil fuels are one of the biggest polluters in the United States, driving Wallace and others to demonstrate against a coal-fired power plant proposed in Hazard, Ky.

Wallace and KFTC’s efforts have garnered national attention. They have been featured in Modern Maturity and Audubon magazines for working to prevent mountain top removal and on television’s Earth Journal and Investigative Reporter for KFTC’s lobbying efforts. “The Audubon article called us ‘housewives from hell,’” laughs Wallace, “but we have developed thick skins over the years.”

Colvin keeps a diary on the two women’s social and environmental struggles. “Reading back through it we are amazed by all the contacts we’ve made with our causes, such as Lois Gibbs of the Love Canal in New York, who lobbied with us in Washington, D.C.,” Wallace says. “My role models are women like Lois who are not afraid to speak out and bring change where needed. Ruth likes to tell critics ‘we may talk funny but our brains work.’”

A heart attack in 1996 slowed Wallace but didn’t stop her activity. Appointed to Kentucky’s Environmental Quality Commission by Governors Brereton Jones and Paul Patton, Wallace is regarded for her environmental resolve. The commission advises officials on environmental matters, provides a public forum for the discussion of issues and monitors environmental conditions. On Wallace’s priority list is stopping mountain top removal and slurry ponds, passing a bottle bill and discouraging merchant power plants from sending Kentucky’s resources out of the state.
According to Wallace, women have a special role in Appalachia’s environmental struggles. “The trend in eastern Kentucky is that men hold most of the jobs and the women work at home to raise the children and keep the home going,” she explains. “I believe that with the men working, dependent on their jobs, they won’t speak out the way Appalachian women do. Like me, if women feel their children are threatened by special interests destroying the land for the next generation, we act.”